30 THE START [chap, i 



worthy accounts of a cougar's having attacked man 

 save under cu:cumstances so exceptional as to make the 

 attack signify little more than the similar exceptional 

 instances of attack by various other species of wild 

 animals that are not normally dangerous to man. 



The jaguar, however, has long been known not only 

 to be a dangerous foe when itself attacked, but also 

 now and then to become a man-eater. Therefore the 

 instances of such attacks furnished me are of merely 

 corroborative value. 



In the excellent zoological gardens at Buenos Aires, 

 the curator, Doctor OneUi, a naturalist of note, showed 

 us a big male jaguar which had been trapped in the 

 Chaco, where it had already begun a career as a man- 

 eater, having killed three persons. They were killed, 

 and two of them were eaten ; the animal was trapped, 

 in consequence of the alarm excited by the death of his 

 third victim. This jaguar was very savage ; whereas a 

 yoimg jaguar, which was in a cage with a young tiger, 

 was playful and friendly, as was also the case with the 

 young tiger. On my trip to visit La Plata Museum, I 

 was accompanied by Captain Mcente Montes, of the 

 Argentine Navy, an accomphshed officer of scientific 

 attainments. He had at one time been engaged on a 

 survey of the boundary between the Argentine and 

 Parana and Brazil. They had a quantity of dried beef 

 in camp. On several occasions a jaguar came into 

 camp after this dried beef Finally they succeeded in 

 protecting it so that he could not reach it. The result, 

 however, was disastrous. On the next occasion that he 

 visited camp, at midnight, he seized a man. Everybody 

 was asleep at the time, and the jaguar came in so noise- 

 lessly as to elude the vigilance of the dogs. As he 

 seized the man, the latter gave one yell, but the next 



