130 CENTRAL AMERICA. 



long claws so sharp. He was pulled to the 

 path side, and in a few hours the vultures 

 had cleaned his bones most thoroughly. A 

 few days after I put his bones into some 

 form, and they remained on the path side for 

 many days, until the cuyotes found them 

 and made no hones of them. 



Though I heard the puma lion crying al- 

 most every night in the forest close to my 

 rancho, and though the good dogs I had were 

 continually rushing into the covert after them, 

 this above-mentioned one was the only one I 

 ever shot in that country. Their cry is not 

 like the roar of the true lion, or the roar of 

 the panther ; it is what a person might con- 

 ceive to issue from an enormously overgrown 

 torn cat, w r ith several extra pairs of lungs. 

 I had no means of measuring the old one I 

 shot ; he was about the height of a large 

 mastiff, but a great deal longer in the body. 



A puma will not attack a full-grown bull 

 or cow, unless he happens to catch one bogged 

 in apantano, or slough, and then he does the 

 same as the condors of Chili do, who will very 

 soon despatch a bull in a deep bog, that pre- 

 vents resistance : he is very mischievous 

 amongst the calves, and even two-year-old 

 cattle. A stag has not the remotest chance 



