THE STORY OF THE 
MOUNTAIN LION. 
Many a voting hunter in the Rocky Mountains has been startled out of a 
sound sleep by a wild, unearthly cry unlike any other sound of the forest. 
“What’s that?’’ he would ask, listening to catch a repetition of the sound. 
“Go to sleep,'’ replies the old hunter, who is his companion; “that’s only a 
painter,—what most people call a mountain lion. They won’t bother us; go 
to sleep.” 
The mountain lion is the largest representative of the cat family in Amer¬ 
ica. It is often called the panther, a word the old-time hunters corrupted into 
painter. Some works on'natural history give it the name of cougar, but I 
prefer the name given it by the Peruvians—Puma, which has been adopted by 
all American zoologists. 
In regard to the dimensions of the puma, it is stated that a male preserved 
in the museum at Washington has a total length (measured along the curves 
of the body) of: 6 feet inches, of which 2 feet 2-| inches are occupied by the 
tail. A large male killed in Arizona measured 7 feet in total length, of which 
3 feet was occupied by the tail; while a smaller male from the same locality 
had a total length of: only 6 feet, of which the tail took up 1 foot 11 inches. 
The largest individual of which the measurements can be regarded as authen- 
11 7 
