GENERAL NOTES 
241 
Both the appearance of the cougar in the daytime and its failure to run at 
first sight of a man are probably accounted for by the wildness of the region. 
Although human habitations are not far to the eastward, there are many square 
miles to the westward never traversed by white men and, although wild tribes 
still occupy some parts, there are many very large areas from which they too are 
absent. It is not impossible, therefore, that this cougar had never before seen 
a human being. This is perhaps less likely than that it had been following my 
trail, as it had that of other humans and, upon my sudden appearance, felt 
cornered, so advanced instead of retreating. At any rate, there is at least one 
person who is sufficiently convinced that some cougars under some circumstances 
may be far from cowardly. — W. H. Osgood. 
THE JAGUAR IN COLORADO 
Is this an additional jaguar record for the United States and a new mammal 
for Colorado? Eufus B. Sage, while camped on Soublet’s Creek at the base of 
the Rockies, head waters of the Platte, within 30 or 4b miles of Long’s Peak and 
2 days’ march from Fort Lancaster, in December of 1843, says: “One of our party 
encountered a strange looking animal in his excursions, which from his descrip- 
tion, must have been of the Leopard family. This circumstance is the more 
remarkable, as Leopards are rarely found except in Southern latitudes. How- 
ever, they are not infrequently met in some parts of the Cumanche country, 
and their skins furnish to the natives a favorite material for arrow-cases.” 
(Rocky Mountain Life, p. 347.) As Sage was quite familiar with panthers and 
bobcats this may have been jaguar or ocelot. 
■ — Ernest Thompson Seton. 
DIURNAL NEST-BUILDING BY A WOOD RAT 
Wood rats are usually considered nocturnal, or at least nocturnal and crepus- 
cular, in their habits. On the W Triangle Ranch, near the head of Cataract 
Canyon, 12 miles west-southwest of Anita, Arizona, one was observed at 5:10 
p.m., September 19, 1916, building a nest in a cavern among the rocks. The 
animal was first seen carrying Guiierrezia stems from just outside the entrance 
of the cavern, where it had apparently stored a small supply. It made two 
trips to this little pile, which was about 8 feet from the nest, gathered 5 or 6 
stems in its mouth, and carried them to the nest, where it worked assiduously 
placing them with its mouth and fore-feet. After I had watched it for 5 min- 
utes, it discovered me and hid its head behind a rock, and,— ostrich-fashion— * 
seemed to think it was hidden. A slight movement on my part and it disap- 
peared into a hole among the rocks back of the nest. When the rat was first 
observed she was exposed to direct sunlight which entered that part of the nest 
upon which she was working. And when she was trying to hide, though still 
visible, in the interior of the cavity, she was in diffused da^dight— by no means 
in darkness. 
The basal and external parts of the nest consisted of sticks (largely the woody 
part of Atriplex and Guiierrezia) and a smaller portion of pieces of cactus (mostly 
Opuntia and Echinocereus) , which formed a semicircle around the anterior (near 
