26 THE START [chap, i 



South American pleistocene fauna had lasted down to 

 within a comparatively few thousand years, down to the 

 time when man, substantially as the Spaniards found 

 him, flourished on the continent. Incidentally the 

 discovery tended to show that this fauna had lasted 

 much later in South America than was the case with 

 the corresponding faunas in other parts of the world ; 

 and therefore it tended to disprove the claims advanced 

 by Doctor Ameghino for the extreme age, geologically, 

 of this fauna, and for the extreme antiquity of man on 

 the American continent. 



One day Doctor Moreno handed me a copy of 

 The Outlook containing my account of a cougar-hunt 

 in Arizona, saying that he noticed that I had very little 

 faith in cougars attacking men, although I had explicitly 

 stated that such attacks sometimes occurred. I told 

 him. Yes, that I had found that the cougar was 

 practically harmless to man, the undoubtedly authentic 

 instances of attacks on men being so exceptional that 

 they could in practice be wholly disregarded. Thereupon 

 Doctor Moreno showed me a scar on his face, and told 

 me that he had himself been attacked and badly mauled 

 by a puma which was undoubtedly trying to prey on 

 him — that is, which had started on a career as a man- 

 eater. This was to me most interesting. I had often 

 met men who knew other men who had seen other men 

 who said that they had been attacked by pumas, but 

 this was the first time that I had ever come across a man 

 who had himself been attacked. Doctor Moreno, as 

 I havie said, is not only an eminent citizen, but an 

 eminent scientific man, and his account of what occurred 

 is unquestionably a scientifically accurate statement of 

 the facts. I give it exactly as the doctor told it ; 

 paraphrasing a letter he sent me, and including one or 



