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Cougar
Also called: Puma, Mountain Loin, Panther, Painter.
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Length.—8 feet, 6 inches; tail, 3 feet.
Description.—Body relatively longer than in the lynx, tail very much longer, no tufts on the ears. General colour pale rufous or yellowish-brown, darker along the back and tail, tip of tail blackish; face grayer, under parts dirty white.
Range.—Formerly Eastern North America, now probably extinct, though a closely allied variety, F. coryi Bangs, the Florida Cougar, still exists in Florida, and others from the Rocky Mountains westward and south throughout South America.
Apart from the blood-curdling tales of most doubtful authenicity with which every one is familiar, accounts pretty generally agree in stigmatizing the cougar as an arrant coward. The truth seems to be that, like all the other wild beasts of this country, his race has learned through bitter experience that the only possible chance of life is to keep out of man's way. Whenever an American wolf, bear or cougar has disobeyed this rule, he has almost invariably been killed or badly wounded at once. No wonder that the survivors have learned caution.
If India, for example, had been inhabited by tribes of wild men, born hunters like almost every tribe of our American Indian, and finally settled by frontiersmen and backwoodsmen, who never entered the woods without an ax or a gun, it is highly probable that reliable accounts of human beings having been attacked by either leopards or tigers would be almost unknown.
I am unable to learn that in any part of the world there is a race of man-eating wild beasts that has survived generations of experience with native tribes of wild men capable of driving an arrow through a panther body at half the range of a gunshot, and of hitting any spot they wished.
Man-eating tigers have for so long been regarded by the natives of most parts of India as invincible, or else protected by the native religions, that they have had things pretty much their own way. One determined hunter for every fifty frightened unarmed men would scarcely serve to intimidate any animal. Many tribes of North American Indians looked upon the bear with veneration; but for all that, any bear so courageous as to let himself be seen by them got an arrow between his ribs right away, and in time the whole tribe of American bears learned that the chances were against them, just as the wolves and cougars arrived at a similar conclusion. Those that turned man-eaters might for a few seasons hunt their human prey successfully, and if gifted with unusual cunning get away unscratched for a while, but the vengeance of the tribe would be certain to overtake them before very long, and only the more cowardly ones of their species would survive to perpetuate the race.
When the white man came the wild beasts of the wilderness found that they had a yet more dangerous enemy to face. The guns of the early settlers were not very handy or reliable weapons, but when they did go off they were capable of scattering half a handful of slugs in the most painful manner; and from that time to this there has hardly been an opportunity for the slyest cougar to attack man, woman or child without bringing down sudden and awful retribution on his head.
Even now almost every farmhouse in the country has a rifle or shot-gun behind the door.
I believe that if lions and tigers had been indigenous to North America, they would long ago have learned to leave man unmolested.
In Northern Europe bears, wolves and lynxes still occasionally attack human beings, and very likely get away without being shot at in many instances. There are plenty of dauntless hunters and dead shots in all parts of the Old World, but they are in the minority. The peasants who make up by far the greater part of the inhabitants of the wilder districts are generally unarmed, and in no way fitted to take personal vengeance on any creature that should attack one of their number.
When it comes to a question of fighting on anything like equal terms, the cougar is by no means a coward. In a fair fight, a full grown male cougar could kill the largest dog without much trouble. Even now they kill cattle and horses from time to time, though every such indiscretion on their part is a challenge to the enraged owner, with his Winchester, bear-trap or strychnine.
Although originally found in every wooded part of the United States, they were so quickly driven off by the settlers that not much is known of their habits here in the East. A few have lingered along in the wilder districts of the Northeastern States even down to the present day; but their every footprint has been eagerly searched for and heavy steel traps set where they were likely to step; while the slightest rumour of a panther in the region would call out scores of zealous hunters armed with shot-guns loaded with buckshot and rifles of every description, and accompanied by dogs of all breeds for tracking.