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In January, 1901, I started on a five weeks’ cougar hunt from Meeker in Northwest Colorado. My companions were Mr. Philip B. Stewart and Dr. Gerald Webb, of Colorado Springs; Stewart was the captain of the victorious Yale nine of ’86. We reached Meeker on January 11th, after a forty mile drive from the railroad, through the bitter winter weather; it was eighteen degrees below zero when we started. At Meeker we met John B. Goff, the hunter, and left town the next morning on horseback for his ranch, our hunting beginning that same afternoon, when after a brisk run our dogs treed a bobcat. After a fortnight Stewart and Webb returned, Goff and I staying out three weeks longer. We did not have to camp out, thanks to the warm-hearted hospitality of the proprietor and manager of the Keystone Ranch, and of the Mathes Brothers and Judge Foreman, both of whose ranches I also visited. The five weeks were spent hunting north of the White River, most of the time in the neighborhood of Coyote Basin and Colorow Mountain. In midwinter, hunting on horseback in the Rockies is apt to be cold work, but we were too warmly clad to mind the weather. We wore heavy flannels, jackets lined with sheepskin, caps which drew down entirely over our ears, and on our feet heavy ordinary socks, german socks, and overshoes. Galloping through the brush and among the spikes of the dead cedars, meant that now and then one got snagged; I found tough overalls better than trousers; and most of the time I did not need the jacket, wearing my old buckskin shirt, which is to my mind a particularly useful and comfortable garment.

It is a high, dry country, where the winters are usually very cold, but the snow not under ordinary circumstances very deep. It is wild and broken in character, the hills and low mountains rising in sheer slopes, broken by cliffs and riven by deeply cut and gloomy gorges and ravines. The sage-brush grows everywhere upon the flats and hillsides. Large open groves of pinyon and cedar are scattered over the peaks, ridges, and table-lands. Tall spruces cluster in the cold ravines. Cottonwoods grow along the stream courses, and there are occasional patches of scrub-oak and quaking asp. The entire country is taken up with cattle ranges wherever it is possible to get a sufficient water-supply, natural or artificial. Some thirty miles to the east and north the mountains rise higher, the evergreen forest becomes continuous, the snow lies deep all through the winter, and such Northern animals as the wolverene, lucivee, and snowshoe rabbit are found. This high country is the summer home of the Colorado elk, now woefully diminished in numbers, and of the Colorado blacktail deer, which are still very plentiful, but which, unless better protected, will follow the elk in the next few decades. I am happy to say that there are now signs to show that the State is waking up to the need of protecting both elk and deer; the few remaining mountain sheep in Colorado are so successfully protected that they are said to be increasing in numbers. In winter both elk and deer come down to the lower country, through a part of which I made my hunting trip. We did not come across any elk, but I have never, even in the old days, seen blacktail more abundant than they were in this region. The bucks had not lost their antlers, and were generally, but not always, found in small troops by themselves; the does, yearlings, and fawns—now almost yearlings themselves—went in bands. They seemed tame, and we often passed close to them before they took alarm. Of course at that season it was against the law to kill them; and even had this not been so none of our party would have dreamed of molesting them.

Flocks of Alaskan long-spurs and of rosy finches flitted around the ranch buildings; but at that season there was not very much small bird life.

The midwinter mountain landscape was very beautiful, whether under the brilliant blue sky of the day, or the starlight or glorious moonlight of the night, or when under the dying sun the snowy peaks, and the light clouds above, kindled into flame, and sank again to gold and amber and sombre purple. After the snow-storms the trees, almost hidden beneath the light, feathery masses, gave a new and strange look to the mountains, as if they were giant masses of frosted silver. Even the storms had a beauty of their own. The keen, cold air, the wonderful scenery, and the interest and excitement of the sport, made our veins thrill and beat with buoyant life.

In cougar hunting the success of the hunter depends absolutely upon his hounds. As hounds that are not perfectly trained are worse than useless, this means that success depends absolutely upon the man who trains and hunts the hounds. Goff was one of the best hunters with whom I have ever been out, and he had trained his pack to a point of perfection for its special work which I have never known another such pack to reach. With the exception of one new hound, which he had just purchased, and of a puppy, which was being trained, not one of the pack would look at a deer even when they were all as keen as mustard, were not on a trail, and when the deer got up but fifty yards or so from them. By the end of the hunt both the new hound and the puppy were entirely trustworthy; of course, Goff can only keep up his pack by continually including new or young dogs with the veterans. As cougar are only plentiful where deer are infinitely more plentiful, the first requisite for a good cougar hound is that it shall leave its natural prey, the deer, entirely alone. Goff’s pack ran only bear, cougar, and bobcat. Under no circumstances were they ever permitted to follow elk, deer, antelope or, of course, rabbit. Nor were they allowed to follow a wolf unless it was wounded; for in such a rough country they would at once run out of sight and hearing, and moreover if they did overtake the wolf they would be so scattered as to come up singly and probably be overcome one after another. Being bold dogs they were always especially eager after wolf and coyote, and when they came across the trail of either, though they would not follow it, they would usually challenge loudly. If the circumstances were such that they could overtake the wolf in a body, it could make no effective fight against them, no matter how large and powerful. On the one or two occasions when this had occurred, the pack had throttled “Isegrim” without getting a scratch.

GOFF AND THE PACK

From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart

As the dogs did all the work, we naturally became extremely interested in them, and rapidly grew to know the voice, peculiarities, and special abilities of each. There were eight hounds and four fighting dogs. The hounds were of the ordinary Eastern type, used from the Adirondacks to the Mississippi and the Gulf in the chase of deer and fox. Six of them were black and tan and two were mottled. They differed widely in size and voice. The biggest, and, on the whole, the most useful, was Jim, a very fast, powerful, and true dog with a great voice. When the animal was treed or bayed, Jim was especially useful because he never stopped barking; and we could only find the hounds, when at bay, by listening for the sound of their voices. Among the cliffs and precipices the pack usually ran out of sight and hearing if the chase lasted any length of time. Their business was to bring the quarry to bay, or put it up a tree, and then to stay with it and make a noise until the hunters came up. During this hunt there were two or three occasions when they had a cougar up a tree for at least three hours before we arrived, and on several occasions Goff had known them to keep a cougar up a tree overnight and to be still barking around the tree when the hunters at last found them the following morning. Jim always did his share of the killing, being a formidable fighter, though too wary to take hold until one of the professional fighting dogs had seized. He was a great bully with the other dogs, robbing them of their food, and yielding only to Turk. He possessed great endurance, and very stout feet.

On the whole the most useful dog next to Jim was old Boxer. Age had made Boxer slow, and in addition to this, the first cougar we tackled bit him through one hind leg, so that for the remainder of the trip he went on three legs, or, as Goff put it, “packed one leg”; but this seemed not to interfere with his appetite, his endurance, or his desire for the chase. Of all the dogs he was the best to puzzle out a cold trail on a bare hillside, or in any difficult place. He hardly paid any heed to the others, always insisting upon working out the trail for himself, and he never gave up. Of course, the dogs were much more apt to come upon the cold than upon the fresh trail of a cougar, and it was often necessary for them to spend several hours in working out a track which was at least two days old. Both Boxer and Jim had enormous appetites. Boxer was a small dog and Jim a very large one, and as the relations of the pack among themselves were those of brutal wild-beast selfishness, Boxer had to eat very quickly if he expected to get anything when Jim was around. He never ventured to fight Jim, but in deep-toned voice appealed to heaven against the unrighteousness with which he was treated; and time and again such appeal caused me to sally out and rescue his dinner from Jim’s highway robbery. Once, when Boxer was given a biscuit, which he tried to bolt whole, Jim simply took his entire head in his jaws, and convinced him that he had his choice of surrendering the biscuit, or sharing its passage down Jim’s capacious throat. Boxer promptly gave up the biscuit, then lay on his back and wailed a protest to fate—his voice being deep rather than loud, so that on the trail, when heard at a distance, it sounded a little as if he was croaking. After killing a cougar we usually cut up the carcass and fed it to the dogs, if we did not expect another chase that day. They devoured it eagerly, Boxer, after his meal, always looking as if he had swallowed a mattress.

Next in size to Jim was Tree’em. Tree’em was a good dog, but I never considered him remarkable until his feat on the last day of our hunt, to be afterward related. He was not a very noisy dog, and when “barking treed” he had a meditative way of giving single barks separated by intervals of several seconds, all the time gazing stolidly up at the big, sinister cat which he was baying. Early in the hunt, in the course of a fight with one of the cougars, he received some injury to his tail, which made it hang down like a piece of old rope. Apparently it hurt him a good deal and we let him rest for a fortnight. This put him in great spirits and made him fat and strong, but only enabled him to recover power over the root of the tail, while the tip hung down as before; it looked like a curved pump-handle when he tried to carry it erect.

Lil and Nel were two very stanch and fast bitches, the only two dogs that could keep up to Jim in a quick burst. They had shrill voices. Their only failing was a tendency to let the other members of the pack cow them so that they did not get their full share of the food. It was not a pack in which a slow or timid dog had much chance for existence. They would all unite in the chase and the fierce struggle which usually closed it; but the instant the quarry was killed each dog resumed his normal attitude of greedy anger or greedy fear toward the others.

Another bitch rejoiced in the not very appropriate name of Pete. She was a most ardent huntress. In the middle of our trip she gave birth to a litter of puppies, but before they were two weeks old she would slip away after us and join with the utmost ardor in the hunting and fighting. Her brother Jimmie, although of the same age (both were young), was not nearly as far advanced. He would run well on a fresh trail, but a cold trail or a long check always discouraged him and made him come back to Goff. He was rapidly learning; a single beating taught him to let deer alone. The remaining hound, Bruno, had just been added to the pack. He showed tendencies both to muteness and babbling, and at times, if he thought himself unobserved, could not resist making a sprint after a deer; but he occasionally rendered good service. If Jim or Boxer gave tongue every member of the pack ran to the sound; but not a dog paid any heed to Jimmie or Bruno. Yet both ultimately became first-class hounds.

The fighting dogs always trotted at the heels of the horses, which had become entirely accustomed to them, and made no objection when they literally rubbed against their heels. The fighters never left us until we came to where we could hear the hounds “barking treed,” or with their quarry at bay. Then they tore in a straight line to the sound. They were the ones who were expected to do the seizing and take the punishment, though the minute they actually had hold of the cougar, the hounds all piled on too, and did their share of the killing; but the seizers fought the head while the hounds generally took hold behind. All of them, fighters and hounds alike, were exceedingly good-natured and affectionate with their human friends, though short-tempered to a degree with one another. The best of the fighters was old Turk, who was by blood half hound and half “Siberian bloodhound.” Both his father and his mother were half-breeds of the same strains, and both were famous fighters. Once, when Goff had wounded an enormous gray wolf in the hind leg, the father had overtaken it and fought it to a standstill. The two dogs together were an overmatch for any wolf. Turk had had a sister who was as good as he was; but she had been killed the year before by a cougar which bit her through the skull; accidents being, of course, frequent in the pack, for a big cougar is an even more formidable opponent to dogs than a wolf. Turk’s head and body were seamed with scars. He had lost his lower fangs, but he was still a most formidable dog. While we were at the Keystone Ranch a big steer which had been driven in, got on the fight, and the foreman, William Wilson, took Turk out to aid him. At first Turk did not grasp what was expected of him, because all the dogs were trained never to touch anything domestic—at the different ranches where we stopped the cats and kittens wandered about, perfectly safe, in the midst of this hard-biting crew of bear and cougar fighters. But when Turk at last realized that he was expected to seize the steer, he did the business with speed and thoroughness; he not only threw the steer, but would have killed it then and there had he not been, with much difficulty, taken away. Three dogs like Turk, in their prime and with their teeth intact, could, I believe, kill an ordinary female cougar, and could hold even a big male so as to allow it to be killed with the knife.

Next to Turk were two half-breeds between bull and shepherd, named Tony and Baldy. They were exceedingly game, knowing-looking little dogs, with a certain alert swagger that reminded one of the walk of some light-weight prize-fighters. In fights with cougars, bears, and lynx, they too had been badly mauled and had lost a good many of their teeth. Neither of the gallant little fellows survived the trip. Their place was taken by a white bulldog bitch, Queen, which we picked up at the Keystone Ranch; a very affectionate and good-humored dog, but, when her blood was aroused, a dauntless though rather stupid fighter. Unfortunately she did not seize by the head, taking hold of any part that was nearest.

The pack had many interesting peculiarities, but none more so than the fact that four of them climbed trees. Only one of the hounds, little Jimmie, ever tried the feat; but of the fighters, not only Tony and Baldy but big Turk climbed every tree that gave them any chance. The pinyons and cedars were low, multi-forked, and usually sent off branches from near the ground. In consequence the dogs could, by industrious effort, work their way almost to the top. The photograph of Turk and the bobcat in the pinyon (facing p. 12) shows them at an altitude of about thirty feet above the ground. Now and then a dog would lose his footing and come down with a whack which sounded as if he must be disabled, but after a growl and a shake he would start up the tree again. They could not fight well while in a tree, and were often scratched or knocked to the ground by a cougar; and when the quarry was shot out of its perch and seized by the expectant throng below, the dogs in the tree, yelping with eager excitement, dived headlong down through the branches, regardless of consequences.

The horses were stout, hardy, sure-footed beasts, not very fast, but able to climb like goats, and to endure an immense amount of work. Goff and I each used two for the trip.

The bear were all holed up for the winter, and so our game was limited to cougars and bobcats. In the books the bobcat is always called a lynx, which it of course is; but whenever a hunter or trapper speaks of a lynx (which he usually calls “link,” feeling dimly that the other pronunciation is a plural), he means a lucivee. Bobcat is a good distinctive name, and it is one which I think the book people might with advantage adopt; for wildcat, which is the name given to the small lynx in the East, is already pre-empted by the true wildcat of Europe. Like all people of European descent who have gone into strange lands, we Americans have christened our wild beasts with a fine disregard for their specific and generic relations. We called the bison “buffalo” as long as it existed, and we still call the big stag an “elk,” instead of using for it the excellent term wapiti; on the other hand, to the true elk and the reindeer we gave the new names moose and caribou—excellent names, too, by the way. The prong buck is always called antelope, though it is not an antelope at all; and the white goat is not a goat; while the distinctive name of “bighorn” is rarely used for the mountain sheep. In most cases, however, it is mere pedantry to try to upset popular custom in such matters; and where, as with the bobcat, a perfectly good name is taken, it would be better for scientific men to adopt it. I may add that in this particular of nomenclature we are no worse sinners than other people. The English in Ceylon, the English and Dutch in South Africa, and the Spanish in South America, have all shown the same genius for misnaming beasts and birds.

TURK AND A BOBCAT IN TOP OF A PINYON

From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart

Bobcats were very numerous where we were hunting. They fed chiefly upon the rabbits, which fairly swarmed; mostly cotton-tails, but a few jacks. Contrary to the popular belief, the winter is in many places a time of plenty for carnivorous wild beasts. In this place, for instance, the abundance of deer and rabbits made good hunting for both cougar and bobcat, and all those we killed were as fat as possible, and in consequence weighed more than their inches promised. The bobcats are very fond of prairie-dogs, and haunt the dog towns as soon as spring comes and the inhabitants emerge from their hibernation. They sometimes pounce on higher game. We came upon an eight months’ fawn—very nearly a yearling—which had been killed by a big male bobcat; and Judge Foreman informed me that near his ranch, a few years previously, an exceptionally large bobcat had killed a yearling doe. Bobcats will also take lambs and young pigs, and if the chance occurs will readily seize their small kinsman, the house cat.

Bobcats are very fond of lurking round prairie-dog towns as soon as the prairie-dogs come out in spring. In this part of Colorado, by the way, the prairie-dogs were of an entirely different species from the common kind of the plains east of the Rockies.

We found that the bobcats sometimes made their lairs along the rocky ledges or in holes in the cut banks, and sometimes in thickets, prowling about during the night, and now and then even during the day. We never chased them unless the dogs happened to run across them by accident when questing for cougar, or when we were returning home after a day when we had failed to find cougar. Usually the cat gave a good run, occasionally throwing out the dogs by doubling or jack-knifing. Two or three times one of them gave us an hour’s sharp trotting, cantering, and galloping through the open cedar and pinyon groves on the table-lands; and the runs sometimes lasted for a much longer period when the dogs had to go across ledges and through deep ravines.

On one of our runs a party of ravens fluttered along from tree to tree beside us, making queer gurgling noises and evidently aware that they might expect to reap a reward from our hunting. Ravens, multitudes of magpies, and golden and bald eagles were seen continually, and all four flocked to any carcass which was left in the open. The eagle and the raven are true birds of the wilderness, and in a way their presence both heightened and relieved the iron desolation of the wintry mountains.

Over half the cats we started escaped, getting into caves or deep holes in washouts. In the other instances they went up trees and were of course easily shot. Tony and Baldy would bring them out of any hole into which they themselves could get. After their loss, Lil, who was a small hound, once went into a hole in a washout after a cat. After awhile she stopped barking, though we could still hear the cat growling. What had happened to her we did not know. We spent a couple of hours calling to her and trying to get her to come out, but she neither came out nor answered, and, as sunset was approaching and the ranch was some miles off, we rode back there, intending to return with spades in the morning. However, by breakfast we found that Lil had come back. We supposed that she had got on the other side of the cat and had been afraid or unable to attack it; so that as Collins the cow-puncher, who was a Southerner, phrased it, “she just naturally stayed in the hole” until some time during the night the cat went out and she followed. When once hunters and hounds have come into the land, it is evident that the bobcats which take refuge in caves have a far better chance of surviving than those which make their lairs in the open and go up trees. But trees are sure havens against their wilderness foes. Goff informed me that he once came in the snow to a place where the tracks showed that some coyotes had put a bobcat up a tree, and had finally abandoned the effort to get at it. Any good fighting dog will kill a bobcat; but an untrained dog, even of large size, will probably fail, as the bobcat makes good use of both teeth and claws. The cats we caught frequently left marks on some of the pack. We found them very variable in size. My two largest—both of course males—weighed respectively thirty-one and thirty-nine pounds. The latter, Goff said, was of exceptional size, and as large as any he had ever killed. The full-grown females went down as low as eighteen pounds, or even lower.

When the bobcats were in the tree-tops we could get up very close. They looked like large malevolent pussies. I once heard one of them squall defiance when the dogs tried to get it out of a hole. Ordinarily they confined themselves to a low growling. Stewart and Goff went up the trees with their cameras whenever we got a bobcat in a favorable position, and endeavored to take its photograph. Sometimes they were very successful. Although they were frequently within six feet of a cat, and occasionally even poked it in order to make it change its position, I never saw one make a motion to jump on them. Two or three times on our approach the cat jumped from the tree almost into the midst of the pack, but it was so quick that it got off before they could seize it. They invariably put it up another tree before it had gone any distance.

Hunting the bobcat was only an incident. Our true quarry was the cougar. I had long been anxious to make a regular hunt after cougar in a country where the beasts were plentiful and where we could follow them with a good pack of hounds. Astonishingly little of a satisfactory nature has been left on record about the cougar by hunters, and in most places the chances for observation of the big cats steadily grow less. They have been thinned out almost to the point of extermination throughout the Eastern States. In the Rocky Mountain region they are still plentiful in places, but are growing less so; while on the contrary the wolf, which was exterminated even more quickly in the East, in the West has until recently been increasing in numbers. In northwestern Colorado a dozen years ago, cougars were far more plentiful than wolves; whereas at the present day the wolf is probably the more numerous. Nevertheless, there are large areas, here and there among the Rockies, in which cougars will be fairly plentiful for years to come.

BOBCAT IN PINYON

From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart

No American beast has been the subject of so much loose writing or of such wild fables as the cougar. Even its name is unsettled. In the Eastern States it is usually called panther or painter; in the Western States, mountain lion, or, toward the South, Mexican lion. The Spanish-speaking people usually call it simply lion. It is, however, sometimes called cougar in the West and Southwest of our country, and in South America, puma. As it is desirable where possible not to use a name that is misleading and is already appropriated to some entirely different animal, it is best to call it cougar.

The cougar is a very singular beast, shy and elusive to an extraordinary degree, very cowardly and yet bloodthirsty and ferocious, varying wonderfully in size, and subject, like many other beasts, to queer freaks of character in occasional individuals. This fact of individual variation in size and temper is almost always ignored in treating of the animal; whereas it ought never to be left out of sight.

The average writer, and for the matter of that, the average hunter, where cougars are scarce, knows little or nothing of them, and in describing them merely draws upon the stock of well-worn myths which portray them as terrible foes of man, as dropping on their prey from trees where they have been lying in wait, etc., etc. Very occasionally there appears an absolutely trustworthy account like that by Dr. Hart Merriam in his “Adirondack Mammals.” But many otherwise excellent writers are wholly at sea in reference to the cougar. Thus one of the best books on hunting in the far West in the old days is by Colonel Dodge. Yet when Colonel Dodge came to describe the cougar he actually treated of it as two species, one of which, the mountain lion, he painted as a most ferocious and dangerous opponent of man; while the other, the panther, was described as an abject coward, which would not even in the last resort defend itself against man—the two of course being the same animal.

However, the wildest of all fables about the cougar has been reserved not for hunter or popular writer, but for a professed naturalist. In his charmingly written book, “The Naturalist in La Plata,” Mr. Hudson actually describes the cougar as being friendly to man, disinterestedly adverse to harming him, and at the same time an enemy of other large carnivores. Mr. Hudson bases his opinion chiefly upon the assertions of the Gauchos. The Gauchos, however, go one degree beyond Mr. Hudson, calling the puma the “friend of Christians”; whereas Mr. Hudson only ventures to attribute to the beast humanitarian, not theological, preferences. As a matter of fact, Mr. Hudson’s belief in the cougar’s peculiar friendship for man, and peculiar enmity to other large beasts of prey, has not one particle of foundation in fact as regards at any rate the North American form—and it is hardly to be supposed that the South American form would alone develop such extraordinary traits. For instance, Mr. Hudson says that the South American puma when hunted will attack the dogs in preference to the man. In North America he will fight the dog if the dog is nearest, and if the man comes to close quarters at the same time as the dog he will attack the man if anything more readily, evidently recognizing in him his chief opponent. He will often go up a tree for a single dog. On Mr. Hudson’s theory he must do this because of his altruistic feeling toward the dog. In fact, Mr. Hudson could make out a better case of philo-humanity for the North American wolf than for the North American cougar. Equally absurd is it to talk, as Mr. Hudson does, of the cougar as the especial enemy of other ferocious beasts. Mr. Hudson speaks of it as attacking and conquering the jaguar. Of this I know nothing, but such an extraordinary statement should be well fortified with proofs; and if true it must mean that the jaguar is an infinitely less formidable creature than it has been painted. In support of his position Mr. Hudson alludes to the stories about the cougar attacking the grizzly bear. Here I am on ground that I do know. It is true that an occasional old hunter asserts that the cougar does this, but the old hunter who makes such an assertion also invariably insists that the cougar is a ferocious and habitual man-killer, and the two statements rest upon equally slender foundations of fact. I have never yet heard of a single authentic instance of a cougar interfering with a full-grown big bear. It will kill bear cubs if it gets a chance; but then so will the fox and the fisher, not to speak of the wolf. In 1894, a cougar killed a colt on a brushy river bottom a dozen miles below my ranch on the Little Missouri. I went down to visit the carcass and found that it had been taken possession of by a large grizzly. Both I and the hunter who was with me were very much interested in what had occurred, and after a careful examination of the tracks we concluded that the bear had arrived on the second night after the kill. He had feasted heartily on the remains, while the cougar, whose tracks were evident here and there at a little distance from the carcass, had seemingly circled around it, and had certainly not interfered with the bear, or even ventured to approach him. Now, if a cougar would ever have meddled with a large bear it would surely have been on such an occasion as this. If very much pressed by hunger, a large cougar will, if it gets the chance, kill a wolf; but this is only when other game has failed, and under all ordinary circumstances neither meddles with the other. When I was down in Texas, hunting peccaries on the Nueces, I was in a country where both cougar and jaguar were to be found; but no hunter had ever heard of either molesting the other, though they were all of the opinion that when the two met the cougar gave the path to his spotted brother. Of course, it is never safe to dogmatize about the unknown in zoology, or to generalize on insufficient evidence; but as regards the North American cougar there is not a particle of truth of any kind, sort, or description in the statement that he is the enemy of the larger carnivores, or the friend of man; and if the South American cougar, which so strongly resembles its Northern brother in its other habits, has developed on these two points the extraordinary peculiarities of which Mr. Hudson speaks, full and adequate proof should be forthcoming; and this proof is now wholly wanting.

Fables aside, the cougar is a very interesting creature. It is found from the cold, desolate plains of Patagonia to north of the Canadian line, and lives alike among the snow-clad peaks of the Andes and in the steaming forests of the Amazon. Doubtless careful investigation will disclose several varying forms in an animal found over such immense tracts of country and living under such utterly diverse conditions. But in its essential habits and traits, the big, slinking, nearly uni-colored cat seems to be much the same everywhere, whether living in mountain, open plain, or forest, under arctic cold or tropic heat. When the settlements become thick, it retires to dense forest, dark swamp or inaccessible mountain gorge, and moves about only at night. In wilder regions it not infrequently roams during the day and ventures freely into the open. Deer are its customary prey where they are plentiful, bucks, does, and fawns being killed indifferently. Usually the deer is killed almost instantaneously, but occasionally there is quite a scuffle, in which the cougar may get bruised, though, as far as I know, never seriously. It is also a dreaded enemy of sheep, pigs, calves, and especially colts, and when pressed by hunger a big male cougar will kill a full-grown horse or cow, moose or wapiti. It is the special enemy of mountain sheep. In 1886, while hunting white goats north of Clarke’s fork of the Columbia, in a region where cougar were common, I found them preying as freely on the goats as on the deer. It rarely catches antelope, but is quick to seize rabbits, other small beasts, and even porcupines, as well as bobcats, coyotes and foxes.

No animal, not even the wolf, is so rarely seen or so difficult to get without dogs. On the other hand, no other wild beast of its size and power is so easy to kill by the aid of dogs. There are many contradictions in its character. Like the American wolf, it is certainly very much afraid of man; yet it habitually follows the trail of the hunter or solitary traveller, dogging his footsteps, itself always unseen. I have had this happen to me personally. When hungry it will seize and carry off any dog; yet it will sometimes go up a tree when pursued even by a single small dog wholly unable to do it the least harm. It is small wonder that the average frontier settler should grow to regard almost with superstition the great furtive cat which he never sees, but of whose presence he is ever aware, and of whose prowess sinister proof is sometimes afforded by the deaths not alone of his lesser stock, but even of his milch cow or saddle horse.

The cougar is as large, as powerful, and as formidably armed as the Indian panther, and quite as well able to attack man; yet the instances of its having done so are exceedingly rare. The vast majority of the tales to this effect are undoubtedly inventions. But it is foolish to deny that such attacks on human beings ever occur. There are a number of authentic instances, the latest that has come to my knowledge being related in the following letter, of May 15, 1893, written to Dr. Merriam by Professor W. H. Brewer, of Yale: “In 1880 I visited the base of Mount Shasta, and stopped a day to renew the memories of 1862, when I had climbed and measured this mountain. Panthers were numerous and were so destructive to sheep that poisoning by strychnine was common. A man living near who had (as a young hunter) gone up Mount Shasta with us in ’62, now married (1880) and on a ranch, came to visit me, with a little son five or six years old. This boy when younger, but two or three years old, if I recollect rightly, had been attacked by a panther. He was playing in the yard by the house when a lean two-thirds grown panther came into the yard and seized the child by the throat. The child screamed, and alarmed the mother (who told me the story). She seized a broom and rushed out, while an old man at the house seized the gun. The panther let go the child and was shot. I saw the boy. He had the scars of the panther’s teeth in the cheek, and below on the under side of the lower jaw, and just at the throat. This was the only case that came to my knowledge at first hand of a panther attacking a human being in that State, except one or two cases where panthers, exasperated by wounds, had fought with the hunters who had wounded them.” This was a young cougar, bold, stupid, and very hungry. Goff told me of one similar case where a cougar stalked a young girl, but was shot just before it was close enough to make the final rush. As I have elsewhere related, I know of two undoubted cases, one in Mississippi, one in Florida, where a negro was attacked and killed by a cougar, while alone in a swamp at night. But these occurred many years ago. The instance related by Professor Brewer is the only one I have come across happening in recent years, in which the cougar actually seized a human being with the purpose of making prey of it; though doubtless others have occurred. I have never known the American wolf actually to attack a human being from hunger or to make prey of him; whereas the Old-World wolf, like the Old-World leopard, undoubtedly sometimes turns man-eater.

Even when hunted the cougar shows itself, as a rule, an abject coward, not to be compared in courage and prowess with the grizzly bear, and but little more dangerous to man than is the wolf under similar circumstances. Without dogs it is usually a mere chance that one is killed. Goff has killed some 300 cougars during the sixteen years he has been hunting in northwestern Colorado, yet all but two of them were encountered while he was with his pack; although this is in a region where they were plentiful. When hunted with good dogs their attention is so taken up with the pack that they have little time to devote to men. When hunted without dogs they never charge unless actually cornered, and, as a general rule, not even then, unless the man chooses to come right up to them. I knew of one Indian being killed in 1887, and near my ranch a cowboy was mauled; but in the first instance the cougar had been knocked down and the Indian was bending over it when it revived; and in the next instance, the cowboy literally came right on top of the animal. Now, under such circumstances either a bull elk or a blacktail buck will occasionally fight; twice I have known of wounded wapiti regularly charging, and one of my own cowboys, George Myer, was very roughly handled by a blacktail buck which he had wounded. In all his experience Goff says that save when he approached one too close when it was cornered by the dogs, he never but once had a cougar start to charge him, and on that occasion it was promptly killed by a bullet. Usually the cougar does not even charge at the dogs beyond a few feet, confining itself to seizing or striking any member of the pack which comes close up; although it will occasionally, when much irritated, make a rapid dash and seize some bold assailant. While I was on my hunt, one of Goff’s brothers lost a hound in hunting a cougar; there were but two hounds, and the cougar would not tree for them, finally seizing and killing one that came too near. At the same time a ranchman not far off set his cattle dog on a cougar, which after a short run turned and killed the dog. But time and again cougars are brought to bay or treed by dogs powerless to do them the slightest damage; and they usually meet their death tamely when the hunter comes up. I have had no personal experience either with the South American jaguar or the Old-World leopard or panther; but these great spotted cats must be far more dangerous adversaries than the cougar.

It is true, as I have said, that a cougar will follow a man; but then a weasel will sometimes do the same thing. Whatever the cougar’s motive, it is certain that in the immense majority of cases there is not the slightest danger of his attacking the man he follows. Dr. Hart Merriam informs me, however, that he is satisfied that he came across one genuine instance of a cougar killing a man whose tracks he had dogged. It cannot be too often repeated, that we must never lose sight of the individual variation in character and conduct among wild beasts. A thousand times a cougar might follow a man either not intending or not daring to attack him, while in the thousandth and first case it might be that the temper of the beast and the conditions were such that the attack would be made.

Other beasts show almost the same wide variation in temper. Wolves, for instance, are normally exceedingly wary of man. In this Colorado hunt I often came across their tracks, and often heard their mournful, but to my ears rather attractive, baying at night, but I never caught a glimpse of one of them; nor during the years when I spent much of my time on my ranch did I ever know of a wolf venturing to approach anywhere near a man in the day-time, though I have had them accompany me after nightfall, and have occasionally come across them by accident in daylight. But on the Keystone Ranch, where I spent three weeks on this particular trip, an incident which occurred before my arrival showed that wolves occasionally act with extraordinary boldness. The former owner of the ranch, Colonel Price, and one of the cowhands, Sabey (both of whom told me the story), were driving out in a buggy from Meeker to the ranch accompanied by a setter dog. They had no weapon with them. Two wolves joined them and made every effort to get at the dog. They accompanied the wagon for nearly a mile, venturing to within twenty yards of it. They paid no heed whatever to the shouts and gestures of the men, but did not quite dare to come to close quarters, and finally abandoned their effort. Now, this action on their part was, as far as my experience goes, quite as exceptional among American wolves as it is exceptional for a cougar to attack a man. Of course, these wolves were not after the men. They were simply after the dog; but I have never within my own experience come upon another instance of wolves venturing to attack a domestic animal in the immediate presence of and protected by a man. Exactly as these two wolves suddenly chose to behave with an absolutely unexpected daring, so a cougar will occasionally lose the fear of man which is inherent in its race.

Normally, then, the cougar is not in any way a formidable foe to man, and it is certainly by no means as dangerous to dogs as it could be if its courage and intelligence equalled its power to do mischief. It strikes with its forepaw like a cat, lacerating the foe with its sharp claws; or else it holds the animal with them, while the muscular forearm draws it in until the fatal bite may be inflicted. Whenever possible it strives to bite an assailant in the head. Occasionally, when fighting with a large dog, a cougar will throw itself on its back and try to rip open its antagonist with its hind feet. Male cougars often fight desperately among themselves.

Although a silent beast, yet at times, especially during the breeding season, the males utter a wild scream, and the females also wail or call. I once heard one cry repeatedly after nightfall, seemingly while prowling for game. On an evening in the summer of 1897 Dr. Merriam had a rather singular experience with a cougar. His party was camped in the forest by Tannum Lake, on the east slope of the Cascades, near the headwaters of a branch of the Yakima. The horses were feeding near by. Shortly after dark a cougar cried loudly in the gloom, and the frightened horses whinnied and stampeded. The cougar cried a number of times afterward, but the horses did not again answer. None of them was killed, however; and next morning, after some labor, all were again gathered together. In 1884 I had a somewhat similar experience with a bear, in the Big Horn Mountains.

Occasionally, but not often, the cougars I shot snarled or uttered a low, thunderous growl as we approached the tree, or as the dogs came upon them in the cave. In the death-grapple they were silent, excepting that one young cougar snarled and squalled as it battled with the dogs.

The cougar is sometimes tamed. A friend of mine had one which was as good-natured as possible until it was a year old, when it died. But one kept by another friend, while still quite young, became treacherous and dangerous. I doubt if they would ever become as trustworthy as a tame wolf, which, if taken when a very young puppy, will often grow up exactly like a dog. Two or three years ago there was such a tame wolf with the Colorado Springs greyhounds. It was safer and more friendly than many collies, and kept on excellent terms with the great greyhounds; though these were themselves solely used to hunt wolves and coyotes, and tackled them with headlong ferocity, having, unaided, killed a score or two of the large wolves and hundreds of coyotes.

Hunting in the snow we were able to tell very clearly what the cougars whose trails we were following had been doing. Goff’s eye for a trail was unerring, and he read at a glance the lesson it taught. All the cougars which we came across were living exclusively upon deer, and their stomachs were filled with nothing else; much hair being mixed with the meat. In each case the deer was caught by stalking and not by lying in wait, and the cougar never went up a tree except to get rid of the dogs. In the day-time it retired to a ledge, or ravine, or dense thicket, starting to prowl as the dark came on. So far as I could see the deer in each case was killed by a bite in the throat or neck. The cougar simply rambled around in likely grounds until it saw or smelled its quarry, and then crept up stealthily until with one or two tremendous bounds it was able to seize its prey. If, as frequently happened, the deer took alarm in time to avoid the first few bounds, it always got away, for though the cougar is very fast for a short distance, it has no wind whatever. It cannot pursue a deer for any length of time, nor run before a dog for more than a few hundred yards, if the dog is close up at the start. I was informed by the ranchmen that when in May the deer leave the country, the cougars turn their attention to the stock, and are very destructive. They have a special fondness for horseflesh and kill almost every colt where they are plentiful, while the big males work havoc with the saddle bands on the ranches, as well as among the brood mares. Except in the case of a female with young they are roving, wandering beasts, and roam great distances. After leaving their day lairs, on a ledge, or in a gorge or thicket, they spend the night travelling across the flats, along the ridges, over the spurs. When they kill a deer they usually lie not very far away, and do not again wander until they are hungry. The males travel very long distances in the mating season. Their breeding-time is evidently irregular. We found kittens with their eyes not yet open in the middle of January. Two of the female cougars we killed were pregnant—in one case the young would have been born almost immediately, that is, in February; and in the other case in March. One, which had a partially grown young one of over fifty pounds with it, still had milk in its teats. At the end of January we found a male and female together, evidently mating. Goff has also found the young just dropped in May, and even in June. The females outnumber the males. Of the fourteen we killed, but three were males.

When a cougar kills a deer in the open it invariably drags it under some tree or shelter before beginning to eat. All the carcasses we came across had been thus dragged, the trail showing distinctly in the snow. Goff, however, asserted that in occasional instances he had known a cougar to carry a deer so that only its legs trailed on the ground.

The fourteen cougars we killed showed the widest variation not only in size but in color, as shown by the following table. Some were as slaty-gray as deer when in the so-called “blue”; others, rufous, almost as bright as deer in the “red.” I use these two terms to describe the color phases; though in some instances the tint was very undecided. The color phase evidently has nothing to do with age, sex, season, or locality. In this table the first cougar is the one killed by Stewart, the sixth by Webb. The length is measured in a straight line, “between uprights,” from the nose to the extreme tip of the tail, when the beast was stretched out. The animals were weighed with the steelyard and also spring scales. Before measuring, we pulled the beast out as straight as we possibly could; and as the biggest male represents about, or very nearly, the maximum for the species, it is easy to see that there can be no basis for the talk one sometimes hears about ten and eleven foot cougars. No cougar, measured at all fairly, has ever come anywhere near reaching the length of nine feet. The fresh hide can easily be stretched a couple of feet extra. Except the first two, all were full-grown; the biggest male was nearly three times the size of the smallest female.