44 
The Naturalist in La Plata. 
ease with which it avoided his best-aimed blows, 
only served to rouse his spirit, and at length striking 
with increased force his stick came to the ground 
and was broken to pieces. For some moments he 
now stood within two yards of the animal perfectly 
defenceless and not knowing what to do. Suddenly 
it sprang past him, actually brushing against his arm 
with its side, and began pursuing the dogs round 
and round among the bushes. In the end my 
informant’s partner appeared on the scene with his 
rifle, and the puma was shot. 
In encounters of this kind the most curious thing 
is that the puma steadfastly refuses to recognize an 
enemy in man, although it finds him acting in 
concert with its hated canine foe, about whose 
hostile intentions it has no such delusion. 
Several years ago a paragraph, which reached 
me in South America, appeared in the English 
papers relating an incident characteristic of the 
puma in a wild beast show in this country. The 
animal was taken out of its cage and led about the 
grounds by its keeper, followed by a large number 
of spectators. Suddenly it was struck motionless 
by some object in the crowd, at which it gazed 
steadily with a look of intense excitement ; then 
springing violently away it dragged the chain from 
the keeper’s hand and dashed in among the people, 
who immediately fled screaming in all directions. 
Their fears were, however, idle, the object of the 
puma’s rage being a dog which it had spied among 
the crowd. 
It iS’Said that when taken adult pumas invariably 
pine away and die; when brought up in captivity 
