52 



The Living Animals of the World 



-a^se^^sna:;' 



histories, whose writers believed 

 the puma was a terrible man-eater, 

 they also appear as " wonderful 

 escapes." One tells how a man 

 put his poncho, or cloak, over his 

 back when crawling up to get a 

 shot at some duck, and felt some- 

 thing heavy on the end of it. He 

 crept from under it, and there was 

 a puma sitting on it, which did 

 not offer to luirt him. 



As space forbids further 

 quotation from ]Mr. Hudson's 

 experiences, which should be read, 

 the writer will only add one 

 anecdote which was told him by 

 Mr. Everard inr Thurn, C.B., 

 formerly an ofticial in British 

 Guiana. He was going up one 

 of the big rivers in his steam- 

 launch, and gave a passage to an 

 elderly and respectaljle Cornish 

 miner, who wanted to go up to 

 a gold-mine. The visitor had his 

 meals on the lioat, but at night 

 went ashore with the men and 

 slung his hammock between two 

 trees, lea\ing the cabin to his 

 host. One morning two of the 

 Indian crew brought the miner's hammock on board witli a good deal of laughing and 

 talking. Their master asked what the joke was, whereupon, pointing to the trees whence 

 they had unslung the hammock, one said, " Tiger sleep with old man last night." They 

 were cjuite in earnest, and pointed out a hollow and marks on the leaves, which showed that 

 a puma had been lying just under the man's hariiinock. When asked if he had noticed 

 anything in the night, he said, " Only the frogs croaking wakened me u}}." Tlie croaking of 

 the frogs was probably the hoarse purring of tlie friendly puma enjoying his proximity to 

 a sleeping man. Mr. Hudson quotes a case in wliich four pumas played round and leapt over a 

 person camping out on the Pampas. He watched them for some time, and then went to sleep! 

 Many of those brought to this country come witli tlieir tempers ruined liy ill-treatment and 

 hardship; but a large jiroportion are as tame as cats. Captain Marshall had one at INlarlow which 

 used to follow him on a chain and watch the boats full of pleasure-seekers at the lock 



The puma is always a beaulifal creature, — the fur cinnamon-colom'ed, tinged with gold; the 

 belly and chest white ; the tail long, full, and round. Though friendly to man, it is a desperate 

 cattle-killer, and particularly fond of horse-flesh, so nruch so that it has been suggested that 

 the indigenous wild horses of America wore destroyed by the puma. 



There are two other cats of the Panrpas — the Grass-cat, not unlike our wild cat in 

 appearance and habits, and the Wood-c.\t, or Geoffroy's Cat. It is a tabby, and a most elegant 

 creature, of which tliere is a specimen, at the time of writing, in the London Zoo. 



The Ocelot. 



In the forest region is also found the most beautiful of the mediunr-sized cats. This 

 is the (.)CELOT, which corresponds somewhat to the servals, Init is not the least like a lynx, as 



Flailo by Utl<, 



OCELOT. 

 Note the elongated spots, and their arrangement in chains. 



