The Puma, or Lion of America. 33 
attacks comparatively large birds, and, after fastidi- 
ously picking a meal from the flesh of the head and 
neck, abandons the untouched body to the polybori 
and other hawks of the more ignoble sort. 
In pastoral districts the puma is very destructive 
to the larger domestic animals, and has an extra- 
ordinary fondness for horseflesh. This was first 
noticed by Molina, whose Natural History of Chili 
was written a century and a half ago. In Patagonia 
I heard on all sides that it was extremely difficult 
to breed horses, as the colts were mostly killed by 
the pumas. A native told me that on one occasion, 
while driving his horses home through the thicket, a 
puma sprang out of the bushes on to a colt following 
behind the troop, killing it before his eyes and not 
more than six yards from his horse’s head. In this 
instance, my informant said, the puma alighted 
directly on the colt’s back, with one fore foot 
grasping its bosom, while with the other it seized 
the head, and, giving it a violent wrench, dislocated 
the neck. The colt fell to the earth as if shot, and 
he affirmed that it was dead before it touched the 
ground. 
Jlaturalists have thought it strange that the 
horse, once common throughout America, should 
have become extinct over a continent apparently so 
well suited to it and where it now multiplies so 
greatly. As a fact wherever pumas abound the 
wild horse of the present time, introduced from 
Europe, can hardly maintain its existence. Formerly 
in many places horses ran wild and multiplied to an 
amazing extent, but this happened, I believe, only 
in districts where the puma was scarce or had 
P 
