PUMAS AND COUGARS 27 



two answers to questions I put to him. The doctor, by 

 the way, stated to me that he had known Mr. Hudson, 

 the author of the " Naturalist in La Plata," and that 

 the latter knew nothing whatever of pumas from personal 

 experience, and had accepted as facts utterly wild 

 fables. 



Undoubtedly, said the doctor, the puma in South 

 America, like the puma in North America, is as a 

 general rule a cowardly animal which not only never 

 attacks man, but rarely makes any efficient defence 

 when attacked. The Indian and white hunters have no 

 fear of it in most parts of the country, and its harmlessness 

 to man is proverbial. But there is one particular spot 

 in southern Patagonia where cougars, to the doctor's 

 own personal knowledge, have for years been dangerous 

 foes of man. This curious local change in habits, by 

 the way, is nothing unprecedented as regards wild 

 animals. In portions of its range, as I am informed by 

 Mr. Lord Smith, the Asiatic tiger can hardly be forced 

 to fight man, and never preys on him, while throughout 

 most of its range it is a most dangerous beast, and often 

 turns man-eater. So there are waters in which sharks are 

 habitual man-eaters, and others where they never touch 

 men ; and there are rivers and lakes where crocodiles 

 or caymans are very dangerous, and others where they 

 are practically harmless — I have myself seen this in 

 Africa. 



In March, 1877, Doctor Moreno, with a party of men 

 working on the boundary commission, and with a 

 number of Patagonian horse-Indians, was encamped for 

 some weeks beside Lake Viedma, which had not before 

 been visited by white men for a century, and which 

 was rarely visited even by Indians. One morning, just 

 before sunrise, he left his camp by the south shore of 



