WINTER. 
December, Friday, ls< — Again we bear strange rumors of the 
panther. The creature is now reported to have been in Oak- 
dale, having crossed the valley from the Black Hills. We hear 
that a man went out of a farm-house, about dusk, to pick up chips 
from a pile of freshly-cut wood at no great distance, and while 
there, he saw among the wood a wild animal, the like of which 
he had never seen before, and which he believed to be a cata- 
mount ; its eyes glared upon him, and it showed its teeth, with a 
hissing kind of noise. This man gave the alarm, and for several 
nights the animal was heard in that neighborhood ; it was tracked 
to a swamp, Avhere a party of men followed it, but although they 
heard its cries, and saw its tracks, the ground was so marshy, that 
they did not succeed in coming up with it. Such is the story 
from Oakdale. Strange as the tale seems, there is nothing abso- 
lutely incredible in it, for wild animals will occasionally stray to 
a great distance from their usual haunts. About fifteen years 
since, a bear was killed on the Mohawk, some thirty miles from 
us. And so late as five-and-forty years ago, there was an alarm 
about a panther in West Chester, only twenty or thirty miles 
from New York ! 
Numbers of these animals are still found in the State, particu- 
larly in the northern mountainous counties. They are also occa 
