THE MOUNTAIN LION 199 
he will return to his kill to feast, or, if food is 
scarce, gladly eat whatever he can obtain. 
From many observations I judge that after 
eating he prefers to lie down for a few hours 
in some sunny or secluded spot, or on a many- 
branched limb generally well up toward the 
top of the tree but sometimes not more than 
ten feet above the earth. 
The lion has extreme curiosity. He will 
follow travellers for hours if there is opportunity 
to keep out of sight while doing so. Often dur- 
ing long snowshoe trips I have returned over the 
route first travelled. Lion tracks in the snow 
showed that I was repeatedly followed for miles. 
In a number of places, where I had taken a long 
rest, the lion had crept up close, so that he could 
easily watch me; and on a few occasions he must 
have been within a few feet of me. 
While walking through a forest in the Medi- 
cine Bow Mountains I was startled and knocked 
down by a glancing blow of a tree limb. This 
limb had evidently broken off under the weight 
of a lion. The lion also came tumbling down 
but caught a claw on a limb and saved him- 
self from striking the earth. Evidently in his 
curiosity to see me he had leaned out too far 
on a weak limb. He fled in confusion, perhaps 
even more frightened than myself. 
The mountain lion is not ferocious. Mr, 
