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THE MEXICAN JAGUAR 
being charged by one. A few years ago a boy near Vancouver went out to 
cut some wood for the house, and was attacked and very badly mauled by a 
female cougar, who had her cubs concealed in some scrub, and it is possible 
that the maternal instinct may be occasionally very strong, as it is some- 
times in the grizzly bear. Even in the old days, before wild animals had 
learned that man was their most serious enemy, we never heard from the 
Indians that the cougar was a dangerous beast, or that it would attack like 
the grizzly. 
The general habits of this animal are very similar to those of all the 
large cats, and need not be discussed. In size the adult male is from 8 feet 
to 8 feet 6 inches in length, including a 3 -foot tail. The ears are rounded 
and have no tufts such as are found on the lynx. The general colour is a 
pale rufus or yellowish -brown, being darker along the back and tail. 
Tip of the tail, blackish. The face is grey with a black mark from the eye 
to the muzzle. The chin and underparts a dull white. A closely allied 
variety, F. c. coryi , is found in Florida. Where there are settlements the 
cougar retires by day to dense forests, swamp thickets or mountain 
gorges, and only moves about at night or in the dusk. In wild regions, 
such as the plains of Patagonia, it moves about freely in the day. Its 
favourite prey are the does and fawns of deer, which it kills with ease if 
the snow is heavy, and will fasten on to a band until not one is left. No 
doubt, like the cheetah , the puma can rush with tremendous speed for a very 
short distance, and, encumbered by snow, its victims cannot make such 
headway as on hard ground. It is the special enemy of mountain sheep, 
and in summer kills large numbers of goats; other small game, such as 
rabbits, and even porcupines, are not despised. Although, when hungry, 
it will, like the leopard, seize and carry off a dog, yet when pursued by even 
a single small dog, which is quite unable to do it any harm, the cougar will 
run from it and take refuge in a tree. With such weapons of offence as it 
possesses it is somewhat remarkable that the cougar does not retain 
as strong a fighting disposition as the leopard, for if it had one -tenth of 
the pluck of that animal men would need to hunt it with far greater caution. 
THE MEXICAN JAGUAR 
The Mexican jaguar ( Felts onca) is common in Mexico, but is only 
a rare visitor to the southern part of Texas. Like all other large cats 
it preys on a variety of smaller mammals, and occasionally attacks stock. 
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