32 I he Nahiralist in La Plata. 
for instance — will readily attack a disabled or 
sleeping man when pressed by hunger ; and when 
driven to desperation no animal is too small or too 
feeble to make a show of resistance. In such a case 
‘‘even the armadillo defends itself,*’ as the gaucho 
proverb says. Besides, the conclusion is in contra- 
diction to many other well-known facts. Putting 
aside the puma’s passivity in the presence of man, 
it is a bold hunter that invariably prefers large to 
small game ; in desert places killing peccary, tapir, 
ostrich, deer, huanaco, &c., all powerful, well-armed, 
or swift animals. Huanaco skeletons seen in 
Patagonia almost invariably have the neck dis- 
located, showing that the puma was the executioner. 
Those only who have hunted the huanaco on the 
sterile plains and mountains it inhabits know how 
wary, keen- scented, and fleet of foot it is. I 
once spent several weeks with a surveying party 
in a district where pumas were very abundant, and 
saw not less than half a dozen deer every day, 
freshly killed in most cases, and all with dislocated 
necks. Where prey is scarce and difficult to capture, 
the puma, after satisfying its hunger, invariably 
conceals the animal it has killed, covering it over 
carefully with grass and brushwood ; these deer, 
however, had all been left exposed to the caracaras 
and foxes after a portion of the breast had been 
eaten, and in many cases the flesh had not been 
touched, the captor having satisfied itself with 
sucking the blood. It struck me very forcibly that 
the puma of the desert pampas is, among mammals, 
like the peregrine falcon of the same district among 
birds ; for there this wide-ranging raptor only 
