NOTES OX ADIRONDACK MAMMALS. 321 



In 1892 a bounty of ten dollars was placed on bear by the State of New 

 York, and before the repeal of this law in 1895 bounties were paid on nine 

 hundred and seven bears. During the autumn of 1904 it is estimated that about 

 one hundred and fifty bears were killed in the Adirondacks, eleven of them weighing: 

 over three hundred pounds each, and the largest recorded turning the scales at four 

 hundred and twenty-eight pounds. 



Pumcr. 



The puma, panther or catamount {Felts concolor) is only recently extinct in this 

 State, and is identical with the variety which was found throughout the eastern 

 states north to the St. Lawrence, and through New England eastward to Maine. 



The American puma has an immense range, from British Columbia south to 

 Patagonia and the Straits of Magellan, and is now being divided by naturalists 

 into many species and subspecies. It preys chiefly on deer, only turning to smaller 

 game when its accustomed food runs short. In the Yellowstone National Park 

 the puma (known in the "West by the grandiloquent name of "mountain lion") 

 has become very destructive to young elk and the wild sheep, and a systematic 

 effort is now being made to destroy it, or at least to reduce its numbers. The puma 

 is a. slinking and cowardly beast, and it is hard to account for the bloodcurdling 

 stories about this big cat that once passed current. 



It would be interesting to record accurately the latest appearance of this 

 animal in New York, as the most recent authentic occurrence in Pennsylvania 

 was in 187 1. Rumors of puma are rife in the Adirondacks, but most panther 

 stories can be traced to the screech owl. 



Dr. C. Hart Merriam, writing in 1886, says that he estimates that nearly one 

 hundred pumas have been killed in the Adirondacks since i860. Since 1871 the 

 State of New York has paid bounties for the killing of ninety-nine of these 

 animals. Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., writing in 1899. says the animal still exists in the 

 wilder portions of the Adirondacks. The last bounty was paid in 1894, for a 

 puma killed in Herkimer County. This may well be the last of these animals 

 in New York. 



The bison or buffalo {Bison americanus) was once found in the State of New 

 York as far east as Syracuse, and may have reached the southwestern limits of 

 the Adirondacks a couple of centuries ago. Stragglers entered the State all 

 through the seventeenth century, but more exact information on this point 

 is- greatly needed. 

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