Cougar

koo'gar, the largest American animal of the cat family, called panther and "painter" in the Eastern States, mountain lion in the Rockies, and known sometimes as the American puma. Cougar is the name used by the Indians of Brazil. The cougar has a reddish, tawny color, very much resembling that of the deer, on which indeed it chiefly feeds. It is from six to eight feet long. A large specimen weighs 225 pounds. It is readily mistaken by a deer, it is said, for one of its own kind. The cougar hunts like a cat, taking its position on the branch of a tree overhanging the runway of the deer. It is an excellent climber. The cry of the male cougar is blood curdling, and has stricken terror into the heart of many a settler. The cry of the female is not unlike the wail of a child, a fact utilized by Cooper in his Deerslayer. The cougar has a wonderful cat-like faculty for stealing through undergrowth, over rocks, and past obstructions without noise. When deer fail, it springs upon rabbits, squirrels, grouse, small birds, and small quadrupeds. Its visits are dreaded by stock raisers from Montana to the Argentine Republic. It is still found in the Allegheny Mountains, but rarely. The cougar has a fierce, crafty, ferocious face; but except in defence of its young, it seldom attacks man. It is hunted to best advantage with dogs, who drive it into a tree and hold it there until the hunter arrives with his rifle. A menagerie is expected to pay about $75 for a good live specimen. The cougar in the East has been described in many hunting stories. Theodore Roosevelt's Hunting Trips of a Ranchman gives some account of its depredations in the West. According to a peculiar custom, corresponding to tiger worship in India, the cougar was reverenced by the California Indians, who would not allow one to be killed. The skin of the cougar is much admired for rugs. A large skin is worth about $25. See Cat