284 
POSSIBLE PETS 
Capuchin is so small, so pretty, and so clever, that it 
seems to embody all the good and none of the bad 
points of monkey nature. 
No one who has seen pumas when kindly treated 
in captivity can doubt the justice of the impression 
that these friendly and beautiful cats at once produce, 
that they must be suited for pets and companions. The 
general verdict of South Americans as to their gentle- 
ness and natural liking for man, even when wild on 
the Pampas, is given in some detail in a later chapter 
on Animal Temper. There was at least one puma 
kept as a pet in this country, by Captain Marshall, 
the owner of a unique private menagerie at Marlow 
on the Thames. Reports of a gentleman, “with a 
tame lioness by his side,” having been seen sitting 
by a lock gate on the Thames, evidently pointed 
to the taming, not of a lioness, which, however 
domesticated among those whom it knows, would 
be too dangerous and uncertain a creature to take 
abroad, but of a puma, which, being neither striped 
nor spotted, would be at once described as a “ lioness ” 
by the ordinary “ man in a boat.” This was the case, 
and the following is Captain Marshall’s short account 
of his late pet, for unfortunately it died of liver- 
complaint before the writer could ask to make its 
acquaintance. “ My big full-grown puma,” writes 
its master, “was as tame as a cat. It was kept for 
months on a chain and collar, and could be led 
about. It would rest its head on my lap, and I 
could pull it about as much as I liked. I also had a 
