1162 General Notes. [November, 
horse in all that section of the country, they appear so absurd to 
to all hunters acquainted with the animal in question, that they 
are looked upon at once as extracts from “ Dashing Dick of the 
Wild West,” in the dime novel series. 
That the panther will run from and tree before the smallest 
yelping cur that can be induced to follow his trail is true, but! 
am satisfied that instinct in some mysterious manner warns 
of the hunter behind the dog, and that it is the latter only which 
they hold in fear. This I have demonstrated to my own satisfac- 
tion, and have had it corroborated by others. Upon one occa- 
sion I followed a panther that was being chased by a settler's dog 
in the dense hemlock and spruce forest through which the Clas 
canine river, in Oregon, runs, and although the plucky little cur 
treed him at least a dozen times, I did not succeed in obtaining 
the slightest glimpse of the brute, and after chasing him from 
early dawn until late in the afternoon, through the most terrific 
wilderness of almost impenetrable thickets, immense fallen trees 
and giant ferns, I found myself so completely used up that I was 
forced to relinquish the pursuit from sheer fatigue. _ 
In this instance the panther must have paid but little attention 
to the dog after he treed, but put in the time listening rapa 
proach, and as soon as that was ascertained he would jump ‘ 
once to the ground, continue his flight for perhaps half a ‘thing 
more, when he would again take to a tree and the poi gm 
would be repeated. Two or three times, where the grou 
particularly favorable, I got near enough to hear hi ion 
tree, which he seemed to do just as readily as if there ha 
no dog there. : 
In regard to their manner of climbing, they ascend te oe 
trees near the mouth of the Columbia, which are freq the first 
feet high, and sixty, eighty or evena hundred feet to wee 
limb, precisely as a cat would climb them, and, when pete a’ 
will sometimes go to the very top. In one instance pros. shat 
small glade in the forest where, from the sign, 1t Was € rs sur 
. ke kittens 5% 
two or more of them had been gamboling, and like the tras 
rying around in the grass, and then bounding against they bad 
of a tree at a point at least ten feet from the groun ” of bark, 
ascended apparently on the run, tearing off great piece? ™ 
soon be explained. Like al! of the cat tribe they are Pae they 
warmth, and upon days when it is rather cold in the shade, 
