I SEPARATE COYOTES, lobos, and panthers from the mass of animals because
they, along with bears, have made such an imprint on human imagination.
White-tailed deer are far more common and more widely dispersed. Men,
women also, by the tens of thousands go out with rifles every fall in
efforts to get near them; but the night-piercing howl and the cunning
ways of the coyote, the panther's track and the rumor of his scream have
inspired more folk tales than all the deer.
Lore and facts about these animals are dispersed in many books not
classifiable under natural history. Lewis and Clark and nearly all the
other chroniclers of Trans-Mississippi America set down much on wild
life. James Pike's _Scout and Ranger_ details the manner in which,
he says, a panther covered him up alive, duplicating a fanciful and
delightful tale in Gerstaecker's _Wild Sports in the Far West_. James
B. O'Neil concludes _They Die but Once_ with some "Bedtime Stories"
that--almost necessarily--bring in a man-hungry panther.