THE JAGUAR AND THE PUMA. 81 



The settlers in the Adirondacks state that these creatures when 

 driven by hunger, and even at other times, for they seem to hke 

 the food, will destroy and eat porcupines. They certainly kill 

 large numbers of these rodents. The proprietor of an hotel in 

 one of the remote districts of the mountains declares that he has 

 frequently shot these animals and in several instances discovered the 

 mouth and throat regularly bristling with quills ; also that he has 

 found their dead bodies covered with these spikes, the beasts having 

 evidently been choked to death through trying to swallow them. 



Mr. Mui-phy gives some interesting details of this animal in 

 his book. From it we learn that the favourite haunts of the puma 

 are amid the deepest recesses of the forest, where it can obtain 

 food and the close concealment so natural to its habits. It is 

 seldom seen abroad during the day> unless severely pressed by 

 hunger, and then it will go boldly anywhere, and occasionally when 

 in extremity will attack a man, or make a raid on a farmyard, despite 

 the protest of furious dogs. When lyiug in wait for its prey, it 

 seeks the shelter of a thicket, or crouches on the lower branches of 

 a tree, and the moment a hare, a deer, or even a wolf passes by, 

 it jumps on its back, and fastening its claws in the sides of the 

 poor captive, cuts open the neck or throat in a few seconds. 



" Its courage is suflB.oiently great to induce it to face any foe, 

 from bear to man, in a case of emergency. I heard an old hunter 

 say that he once saw a fight between a black bear and a cougar, and 

 that the latter killed its adversary in less than twenty minutes, by 

 leaping on its neck and cutting the spinal cord with its lance-like 

 teeth. Bruin did not die, however,'without a severe struggle, and 

 inflicting such injuries on the other that it would undoubtedly 

 have died of its wounds had the hunter not shot it as it was 



crawling into the shrubbery He saw on another occasion 



a fight between a cougar and a wolf, and according to his state- 

 ment it was one worth beholding, as they tumbled over and over 

 each other, and caused the leaves to fly about as wildly as if two 

 moose were engaged in a deadly contest. Knowing which one 

 would win, he loaded his gun with buckshot, and approaching them 

 to within a distance of thirty yards, he flred both barrels at their 

 heads in rapid succession, and killed them in their tracks." 



