

AvuG; 10, 1907.] 
FOREST AND’'STREAM. 

had caused me to miss repeatedly on previous 
attempts. I am also guilty of aiding and abet- 
ting the setting of a spring-gun to shoot a big 
Arizona grizzly that had just killed a rancher in 
the cafion of Oak Creek, a tributary of the well 
known Rio Verde. The man had met his death 
through having a cartridge jam in his repeater 
at a critical moment of a battle that had arisen 
through his fearless attempt to shoot the bear 
at close quarters. In this instance the offence 
was, I trust, partly excusable because of the 
tragedy that preceded it, and because, also, the 
spring-gun was only resorted to after two days 
and nights of constant vigil, at the end of which 
time we were convinced that our presence at 
the spot had a great deal to do with the fact that 
the wily grizzly was shunning the bait we had 
laid in place of the body of his victim to lure 
him back to the scene of the late conflict. Some 
amend, also, was made for this unsportsmanlike 
procedure by the taking alive of the grizzly after 
it had been wounded by the spring-gun, a coup, 
however, which I regret to say my unavoidable 
absence did not permit me to share the credit of. 
The incident which gave rise to my rating at 
the hands of the properly’ scornful old. Blake, 
and in turn led me to the recording of the fore- 
going reflections on the relations of sport and 
big game shooting, may. be briefly told. One 
morning last November, while spending a month 
on the Isthmus watching the progress of the 
Panama Canal work, I happened to encounter 
in the brush, not a hundred yards from a con- 
struction spur of the railway, a very sizable 
specimen of the South American jaguar, incor- 
rectly called tigre, or tiger, in Central America. 
By the merest chance, in addition to a machete 
for cutting underbrush—the inseparable com- 
panion of any one straying from the beaten 
tracks in the tropics—and my camera, I had an 
automatic pistol (though not a “forty-four,” as 
Blake called it) stuck in my belt, and it was its 
reassuring presence, no doubt, that inspired me 
with sufficient courage to try for a picture. 
In my experience with a number of the several 
members of the cat tribe there is always a 
moment immediately following that in which one 
of them is surprised by the sudden and unex- 
pected appearance of a man in which the animal 
remains perfectly motionless, principally, no 
doubt, in the hope of escaping observation. The 
first move is almost invariably up to the man, 
and if he will stand still, or only move slowly 
and quietly, the beast may often be held for a 
minute or more before it takes alarm and breaks 
away in flight. I say “flight,” because unless 
wounded or famished with hunger, and ysually 
even then, his action almost invariably takes 
the form of a retreat. The only exception to 
this rule that I have observed or heard of was a 
cougar with which I had some concern down in 
the lake region of the Andes of Southern Chile, 
and of which I may write at another time. 
My approach over the damp earth of a 
cleared path through the bush had been almost 
noiseless, and I doubt very much if the jaguar 
in question was aware of my presence an instant 
before I brought up with a jerk on discovering 
him. My pistol was my first thought, and this 
once in hand, my second thought, probably sug- 
gested by the statuesque pose of my scowling 
vis-a-vis, was my camera. The latter was a 
small, short-focus folding affair which, beyond 
extending the bellows, needed no adjustment 
whatever. The path and the surrounding jungle, 
well- 

Man ro <TT “TT \TT 5 af 
SOMEBODY’S PET JAGUAR CUT OUT, PASTED ON AND RE-PHOTOGRAPHED.” 
though all in shadow as far as direct sunshine 
was concerned, were pervaded by that powerfully 
actinic reflected light which often renders it 
possible to make instantaneous exposures in the 
tropics under conditions which would be con- 
sidered quite prohibitive in other latitudes. The 
distance was about twenty-five feet. 
The click of the spring which accompanied 
the running out of the bellows caused my sub- 
ject to drop to a threatening crouch, which 
action deflected my attention from the camera 
to the pistol and left me in apprehensive doubt 
for eight or ten seconds as to whether or not 
he was going to fly, and if so, whether at me or 
from me. The idea also suggested itself to me 
that perhaps I had best anticipate him in the 
flying act, in which event my line’ of flight was 
already pre-determined. But while nervously 
fingering the trigger of my pistol, | wavered in 
resolve, the tenseness gradually left the sinewy 
figure before me and it slowly-resumed its stand- 
ing position, though an angrily. switching tail 
and back-laid ears indicated that distrust and 
suspicion were by no means dispelled. 
With the slowest of movements I again trans- 
ferred the camera to my right hand, centered the 
motionless yellow and black figure in the finder 
and, with the pistol still held ready, used the 
thumb of my left hand to press the button. On 
the quivering ears of the poor jaguar the click 
of the shutter must have fallen like the roar of 
one of the big blasts up in the Culebra, for he 
immediately started to bolt, and thus assured 
that I was not the worst frightened object pres- 
ent after all, my faltering courage came back 
twitching forefinger closed 
with a rush, my 
down on the ‘trigger, and almost before I was 
aware of it I had fired three bullets after the 
fleeting form of my late subject. : 
The shots were discharged with the pistol 
still in my left hand and with no pretense what- 
ever in the matter of aim, which may account in 
a measure for the fact that a ‘subsequent post- 
mortem failed to show where any of them took 
effect. They were enough, however, to lead the 
very capricious beast at whom they were di- 
rected into the belief that there was a matter be- 
hind him that required his prompt attention. 
Wheeling about as though set on a pivot, he 
launched his body into the air and had already 
made one stupendous leap in the direction of the 
spot he had instinctively diagnosed as the seat 
of the trouble, and was just rising for another 
when, more carefully than before, though from 
a hand that I daresay shook no less than when 
it was holding the camera, I discharged in quick 
succession the three cartridges that still 
mained in the clip. One of these went wild, but 
either of the that 
rooming into the breast of the animal would 
have been quite sufficient in itself to have ulti- 
mately eliminated him as a serious trouble factor. 
But, being a cat, he died slowly, and the en- 
ergetic mass of fur, paws, jaws and claws that 
came plumping down at my feet had more than 
a little life left in it, ‘the immediate necessity for 
letting out which as a precautionary measure in- 
volved some indiscriminate slashings with the 
big machete that almost ruined what would 
otherwise have been one of the prettiest hides 
that ever came- away from Panama. 
As might have been expected under the cir- 
Te= 
two sof{t-noses went mush- 
cumstances, the print which I obtained from the 
sorry lot of blurs I finally managed to tease out 
on the film I had exposed on the “poor old 
white sun-spots on a 
A sympathetic in- 
cat’ consisted of a few 
background of dull black. 
spection of it by a person who knew where to 
look might have revealed a couple of light dots 
which bore about as resemblance to a 
couple of gooseberries with the sun shining on 
much 
g 
them as they did to the vitreously-gleaming  fire- 
ball orbs of an infuriated jaguar. The rest of 
tle animal I searched for in vain, and not a 
single one of three different brands of patent 
combined bath of all 
intensifier, nor:even a 
three of them mixed together would induce my 
leopard, or at least such impression of him as 
was on the film, to change his spots. 
Quite naturally I was in despair over the fail- 
ure, for what evidence had I left to prove that 
I had not climbed a tree and shot the animal, 
some one 
or worse still, poisoned it? What if 
should say that the hide had been given me, or 
that I had bought it or stolen it? I had counted 
on that picture to bolster up a story which [ 
perceived at once I was going to have a hard 
time making my friends believe without it. 
What that I 
passing the window of a little side street 
wonder was interested, when, in 
“sale 

