The cougar (_Felis concolor_) is the only indigenous long-tailed cat in
America north of the parallel of 30 degrees. The "wild cats" so called,
are lynxes with short tails; and of these there are three distinct
species. But there is only one true representative of the genus Felis,
and that is the animal in question.
This has received many trivial appellations. Among Anglo-American
hunters, it is called the panther--in their _patois_, "painter." In
most parts of South America, as well as in Mexico, it receives the
grandiloquent title of "lion" (_leon_), and in the Peruvian countries is
called the "puma," or "poma." The absence of stripes, such as those of
the tiger--or spots, as upon the leopard--or rosettes, as upon the
jaguar, have suggested the name of the naturalists, _concolor_.
_Discolor_ was formerly in use; but the other has been generally
adopted.
There are few wild animals so regular in their colour as the cougar:
very little variety has been observed among different specimens. Some
naturalists speak of spotted cougars--that is, having spots that may be
seen in a certain light. Upon young cubs, such markings do appear; but
they are no longer visible on the full-grown animal. The cougar of
mature age is of a tawny red colour, almost uniform over the whole body,
though somewhat paler about the face and the parts underneath. This
colour is not exactly the tawny of the lion; it is more of a reddish
hue--nearer to what is termed calf-colour.
The cougar is far from being a well-shaped creature: it appears
disproportioned. Its back is long and hollow; and its tail does not
taper so gracefully as in some other animals of the cat kind. Its legs
are short and stout; and although far from clumsy in appearance, it does
not possess the graceful _tournure_ of body so characteristic of some of
its congeners. Though considered the representative of the lion in the
New World, its resemblance to the royal beast is but slight; its colour
seems to be the only title it has to such an honour. For the rest, it
is much more akin to the tigers, jaguars, and true panthers. Cougars
are rarely more than six feet in length, including the tail, which is
usually about a third of that measurement.
The range of the animal is very extensive. It is known from Paraguay to
the Great Lakes of North America. In no part of either continent is it
to be seen every day, because it is for the most part not only nocturnal
in its activity, but one of those fierce creatures that, fortunately, do
not exist in large numbers. Like others of the genus, it is solitary in
its habits, and at the approach of civilisation betakes itself to the
remoter parts of the forest. Hence the cougar, although found in all of
the United States, is a rare animal everywhere, and seen only at long
intervals in the mountain-valleys, or in other difficult places of the
forest. The appearance of a cougar is sufficient to throw any
neighbourhood into an excitement similar to that which would be produced
by the chase of a mad dog.
It is a splendid tree-climber. It can mount a tree with the agility of
a cat; and although so large an animal, it climbs by means of its
claws--not by hugging, after the manner of the bears and opossums.
While climbing a tree, its claws can be heard crackling along the bark
as it mounts upward. It sometimes lies "squatted" along a horizontal
branch, a lower one, for the purpose of springing upon deer, or such
other animals as it wishes to prey upon. The ledge of a cliff is also a
favourite haunt, and such are known among the hunters as
"panther-ledges." It selects such a position in the neighbourhood of
some watering-place, or, if possible, one of the salt or soda springs
(licks) so numerous in America. Here it is more certain that its vigil
will not be a protracted one. Its prey--elk, deer, antelope, or
buffalo--soon appears beneath, unconscious of the dangerous enemy that
cowers over them. When fairly within reach, the cougar springs, and
pouncing down upon the shoulders of the victim, buries its claws in the
flesh. The terrified animal starts forward, leaps from side to side,
dashes into the papaw thickets, or breasts the dense cane-brake, in
hopes of brushing off its relentless rider. All in vain! Closely
clasping its neck, the cougar clings on, tearing its victim in the
throat, and drinking its blood throughout the wild gallop. Faint and
feeble, the ruminant at length totters and falls, and the fierce
destroyer squats itself along the body, and finishes its red repast. If
the cougar can overcome several animals at a time, it will kill them
all, although but the twentieth part may be required to satiate its
hunger. Unlike the lion in this, even in repletion it will kill. With
it, destruction of life seems to be an instinct.
There is a very small animal, and apparently a very helpless one, with
which the cougar occasionally quarrels, but often with ill success--this
is the Canada porcupine. Whether the cougar ever succeeds in killing
one of these creatures is not known, but that it attacks them is beyond
question, and its own death is often the result. The quills of the
Canada porcupine are slightly barbed at their extremities; and when
stuck into the flesh of a living animal, this arrangement causes them to
penetrate mechanically deeper and deeper as the animal moves. That the
porcupine can itself discharge them to some distance, is not true, but
it is true that it can cause them to be easily _detached_; and this it
does when rashly seized by any of the predatory animals. The result is,
that these remarkable spines become fast in the tongue, jaws, and lips
of the cougar, or any other creature which may make an attack on that
seemingly unprotected little animal. The fisher (_Mustela Canadensis_)
is said to be the only animal that can kill the porcupine with impunity.
It fights the latter by first throwing it upon its back, and then
springing upon its upturned belly, where the spines are almost entirely
wanting.
The cougar is called a cowardly animal: some naturalists even assert
that it will not venture to attack man. This is, to say the least, a
singular declaration, after the numerous well-attested instances in
which men have been attacked, and even killed by cougars. There are
many such in the history of early settlement in America. To say that
cougars are cowardly now when found in the United States--to say they
are shy of man, and will not attack him, may be true enough. Strange,
if the experience of 200 years' hunting, and by such hunters too, did
not bring them to that. We may safely believe, that if the lions of
Africa were placed in the same circumstances, a very similar shyness and
dread of the upright biped would soon exhibit itself. What all these
creatures--bears, cougars, lynxes, wolves, and even alligators--are now,
is no criterion of their past. Authentic history proves that their
courage, at least so far as regards man, has changed altogether since
they first heard the sharp detonation of the deadly rifle. Even
contemporaneous history demonstrates this. In many parts of South
America, both jaguar and cougar attack man, and numerous are the deadly
encounters there. In Peru, on the eastern declivity of the Andes, large
settlements and even villages have been abandoned solely on account of
the perilous proximity of those fierce animals.
In the United States, the cougar is hunted by dog and gun. He will run
from the hounds, because he knows they are backed by the unerring rifle
of the hunter; but should one of the yelping pack approach too near, a
single blow of the cougar's paw is sufficient to stretch him out. When
closely pushed, the cougar takes to a tree, and, halting in one of its
forks, humps his back, bristles his hair, looks downward with gleaming
eyes, and utters a sound somewhat like the purring of a cat, though far
louder. The crack of the hunter's rifle usually puts an end to these
demonstrations, and the cougar drops to the ground either dead or
wounded. If only the latter, a desperate fight ensues between him and
the dogs, with several of whom he usually leaves a mark that
distinguishes them for the rest of their lives.
The scream of the cougar is a common phrase. It is not very certain
that the creature is addicted to the habit of screaming, although noises
of this kind heard in the nocturnal forest have been attributed to him.
Hunters, however, have certainly never heard him, and they believe that
the scream talked about proceeds from one of the numerous species of
owls that inhabit the deep forests of America. At short intervals, the
cougar does make himself heard in a note which somewhat resembles a
deep-drawn sigh, or as if one were to utter with an extremely guttural
expression the syllables "Co-oa," or "Cougar." Is it from this that he
derives his trivial name?