XII 
THE PUMA 
287 
time I was an inmate in Mr. Corfield’s house, whose kindness 
to me I do not know how to express. 
I will here add a few observations on some of the animals 
and birds of Chile. The Puma, or South American Lion, is 
not uncommon. This animal has a wide geographical range ; 
being found from the equatorial forests, throughout the deserts 
of Patagonia, as far south as the damp and cold latitudes (53 0 
to 54 0 ) of Tierra del Fuego. I have seen its footsteps in the 
Cordillera of central Chile, at an elevation of at least 10,000 
feet. In La Plata the puma preys chiefly on deer, ostriches, 
bizcacha, and other small quadrupeds ; it there seldom attacks 
cattle or horses, and most rarely man. In Chile, however, it 
destroys many young horses and cattle, owing probably to the 
scarcity of other quadrupeds : I heard, likewise, of two men and 
a woman who had been thus killed. It is asserted that the 
puma always kills its prey by springing on the shoulders, and 
then drawing back the head with one of its paws, until the 
vertebrae break : I have seen in Patagonia the skeletons of 
guanacos, with their necks thus dislocated. 
The puma, after eating its fill, covers the carcass with many 
large bushes, and lies down to watch it. This habit is often 
the cause of its being discovered ; for the condors wheeling in 
the air, every now and then descend to partake of the feast, 
and being angrily driven away, rise all together on the wing. 
The Chileno Guaso then knows there is a lion watching his 
prey—the word is given—and men and dogs hurry to the 
chase. Sir F. Plead says that a Gaucho in the Pampas, upon 
merely seeing some condors wheeling in the air, cried “A lion!” 
I could never myself meet with any one who pretended to 
such powers of discrimination. It is asserted that if a puma 
has once been betrayed by thus watching the carcass, and has 
then been hunted, it never resumes this habit ; but that having 
gorged itself, it wanders far away. The puma is easily killed. 
In an open country it is first entangled with the bolas, then 
lazoed, and dragged along the ground till rendered insensible. 
At Tandeel (south of the Plata) I was told that within three 
months one hundred were thus destroyed. In Chile they are 
generally driven up bushes or trees, and are then either shot, or 
baited to death by dogs. The dogs employed in this chase 
