cristiano"--has been persistently ignored by all travellers and
naturalists who have mentioned the puma. They have thus made it a very
incongruous creature, strong enough to kill a horse, yet so cowardly
withal that it invariably flies from a human being--even from a sleeping
child! Possibly its real reputation was known to some of those who havo
spoken about it; if so, they attributed what they heard to the love of
the marvellous and the romantic, natural to the non-scientific mind; or
else preferred not to import into their writings matter which has so
great a likeness to fable, and might have the effect of imperilling
their reputation for sober-mindedness.

It is, however, possible that the singular instinct of tho southern
puma, which is unique among animals in a state of nature, is not
possessed by the entire species, ranging as it does over a hundred
degrees of latitude, from British North America to Tierra del Fuego. The
widely different conditions of life in the various regions it inhabits
must necessarily have caused some divergence. Concerning its habits in
the dense forests of the Amazonian region, where it must have developed
special instincts suited to its semi-arboreal life, scarcely anything
has been recorded. Everyone is, however, familiar with the dreaded
cougar, catamount, or panther--sometimes called "painter"--of North
American literature, thrilling descriptions of encounters with this
imaginary man-eating monster being freely scattered through the
backwoods or border romances, many of them written by authors who have
the reputation of being true to nature. It may be true that this cougar
of a cold climate did occasionally attack man, or, as it is often
stated, follow him in the forest with the intention of springing on him
unawares; but on this point nothing definite will ever be known, as the
pioneers hunters of the past were only anxious to shoot cougar and not
to study its instinct and disposition. It is now many years since