COUGAR. 
307 
the same colour and but little mane, it occurred to the colonists that the 
•skins they saw could belong to no other animal ! 
The Cougar is found sparsely distributed over the whole of North 
America up to about latitude 45°. In former times this animal was more 
abundant than at present, and one was even seen a few miles from the city 
of New-York within the recollection of Dr. Dekay, who speaks of the 
consternation occasioned by its appearance in Westchester County, when 
he was a boy. 
The Cougar is generally found in the very wildest parts of the country, 
in deep wooded swamps, or among the mountain cliffs and chasms of the 
Alleghany range. In Florida he inhabits the miry swamps and the watery 
everglades ; in Texas, he is sometimes found on the open prairies, and 
his tracks may be seen at almost every cattle-crossing place on the slug- 
gish bayous and creeks with their quick-sands and treacherous banks. 
At such places the Cougar sometimes finds an unfortunate calf, or perhaps 
a cow or bullock, that has become fast in the oozy, boggy earth, and 
from exhaustion has given up its strugglings, and been drowned or suffocat- 
ed in the mire. 
This species at times attacks young cattle, and the male from which 
our drawing was made, was shot in the act of feeding upon a black heifer 
which he had seized, killed, and dragged into the edge of a thicket close- 
adjoining the spot. The Cougar, is however, generally compelled to sub- 
sist on small animals, young deer, skunks, raccoons, &c., or bii’ds, and will 
even eat carrion when hard pressed by hunger. His courage is not great, 
and unless very hungry, or when wmunded and at bay, he seldom attacks 
man. 
.1. W. Audubon was informed, when in Texas, that the Cougar would 
remain in the vicinity of the carcase of a dead horse or cow, retiring after 
gorging himself, to a patch of tall grasses, or brambles, close by, so as to 
keep off intruders, and from which lair he could return when his appetite 
again called him to his dainty food. In other cases he returns, after catch- 
ing a pig or calf, or finding a dead animal large enough to satisfy his hun- 
gry stomach, to his accustomed haunts, frequently to the very place where 
he was whelped and suckled. 
Dr. Dekay mentions, that he was told of a Cougar in Warren County, 
in the State of New-York, that resorted to a barn, from whence he was 
repeatedly dislodged, and finally killed. “He shewed no fight whatever, 
His mouth was found to be filled with the spines of the Canada porcupine, 
which was probably the cause of his diminished wariness and ferocity, 
and would in all probability have finally caused his death.” 
The panther, or “ painter,” as the Cougar is called, is a nocturnal ani- 
