THE MOUNTAIN LION
Raising my eyes for an instant from the antics of a woodchuck, they
caught a movement of the tall grass caused by a crawling animal. This
presently showed itself to be a mountain lion. He was slipping up on a
mare and colt on the opposite edge of the meadow. The easy air that
was blowing across my face--from horse to lion--had not carried a
warning of my presence to either of them.
I was in Big Elk Park, seated on a rock pile, and was nearly concealed
by drooping tree limbs. Behind me rose the forested Twin Peaks, and
before me a ragged-edged mountain meadow lay in the forest; and across
this meadow the lion crawled.
The colt kicked up its heels as it ran merry circles round its mother.
This beautiful bay mare, like her colt, was born in unfenced scenes
and had never felt the hand of man. She had marked capability and the
keenness exacted by wilderness environment.
I watched the bending grass as the lion crept closer and closer.
Occasionally I caught a glimpse of the low-held body and the alert
raised head. The back-pointing, sensitive three-foot tail, as restless
as an elephant’s trunk, kept swinging, twitching, and feeling.
Planning before the lion was within leaping distance to warn the mare
with a yell, I sat still and watched.
The well-developed and ever-alert senses of the mare--I know not
whether it was scent or sight--brought a message of danger. Suddenly
she struck an attitude of concentration and defiance, and the
frightened colt crowded to her side. How capable and courageous she
stood, with arched neck, blazing eyes, vigilant ears, and haughty
tail! She pawed impatiently as the lion, now near, watchful and
waiting, froze.
Suddenly he leaped forward, evidently hoping to stampede both animals
and probably to seize the separated colt. Instantly the mother
wheeled, and her outkicking heels narrowly missed the lion’s head.
Next the lion made a quick side-leap to avoid being stamped beneath
the mare’s swift front feet.
For half a minute the mare and lion were dodging and fighting with all
their skill. A splendid picture the mare made with erect tail and
arched neck as she struck and wheeled and kicked!
Again and again the lion tried to leap upon the colt; but each time
the mother was between them. Then, watching his chance, he boldly
leaped at the mare, endeavouring to throw a forepaw round her neck
and, at the same instant, to seize and tear the throat with his savage
teeth. He nearly succeeded.
With the lion clinging and tearing at her head, the audacious mare
reared almost straight on her hind legs and threw herself backward.
This either threw the lion off or he let go. She had her nose badly
clawed and got a bite in the neck; but she was first to recover, and a
kick landed upon the lion’s hip. Crippled, he struggled and hurried
tumbling away into the woods, while the bleeding mare paused to
breathe beside the untouched colt.
The mountain lion is called a puma, catamount, panther, painter, or
cougar, and was originally found all over North America. Of course he
shows variations due to local climate and food.
The lion is stealthy, exceedingly cunning, and curious in the extreme;
but I am not ready, as many are, to call him cowardly. He does not
have that spectacular rash bravery which dashes into the face of
almost certain death; but he is courageous enough when necessity
requires him to procure food or to defend himself and his kind. He
simply adapts himself to conditions; and these exact extreme caution.
The mountain lion may be called sagacious rather than audacious.
Settlers in his territory are aware of his presence through his
hogging the wild game and his occasional or frequent killing of colts,
horses, cattle, sheep, and chickens. But so seldom is he seen, or even
heard, that, were it not for his tracks and the deadly evidence of his
presence, his existence could not be believed.
Though I have camped in his territory for weeks at a time, and
ofttimes made special efforts to see him, the number of lions I have
seen--except, of course, those treed by dogs--is small.
When a mountain lion is frightened, or when pursued by dogs, he is
pretty certain to take refuge in a tree. This may be a small tree or a
large one. He may be out on a large limb or up in the top of the tree.
The lion is a fair runner and a good swimmer. Often he has been known
to swim across lakes, or even arms of the sea, more than a mile wide.
And he is an excellent tree climber, and often uses a living tree or a
dead leaning one as a thoroughfare--as a part of his trail system on a
steep mountain side. Twice I have seen him on a near-by limb at night
watching me or my fire. Once I woke in the night and saw a lion upon
two out-reaching tree limbs not more than eight feet above me. His
hind feet were upon one limb, his forefeet upon a lower limb, and he
was looking down, watching me curiously. He remained in this position
for several minutes, then turned quietly, descended the tree on the
opposite side, and walked away into the woods.
It is probable that lions mate for life. Sometimes they live year
after year in the same den and prowl over the same local territory.
This territory, I think, is rarely more than a few miles across;
though where food is scarce or a good den not desirably located, they
may cover a larger territory.
Lions commonly live in a den of their own making. This is sometimes
dug in loose sand or soil where its entrance is concealed among
bushes. Sometimes it is beneath a fallen log or a tree root, and in
other places a semi-den, beneath rocks, is enlarged. In this den the
young are born, and the old ones may use it a part of each year, and
for year after year.
Though occasionally a mother lion may raise as many as five kittens,
rarely does she succeed in raising more than two; and I think only two
are commonly brought forth at a birth. These kittens probably remain
with the mother for nearly a year, and in exceptional cases even
longer. As I have seen either kittens or their tracks at every season
of the year, I assume the young may be born at any time.
The mountain lion is a big-whiskered cat and has many of the traits
possessed by the average cat. He weighs about one hundred and fifty
pounds and is from seven to eight feet long, including a three-foot
tail. He is thin and flat-sided and tawny in colour. He varies from
brownish red to grayish brown. He has sharp, strong claws.
Mr. Roosevelt once offered one thousand dollars for a mountain lion
skin that would measure ten feet from tip to tip. The money was never
claimed. Apparently, however, in the state of Washington a hunter did
succeed in capturing an old lion that weighed nearly two hundred
pounds and measured ten and a half feet from tip to tip. But most
lions approximate only one hundred pounds and measure possibly eight
feet from tip to tip.
The lion eats almost anything. I have seen him catching mice and
grasshoppers. On one occasion I was lying behind a clump of willows
upon a beaver dam. Across the pond was an open grassy space. Out into
this presently walked a mountain lion. For at least half an hour he
amused or satisfied himself by chasing, capturing, and eating
grasshoppers. He then laid down for a few minutes in the sunshine;
but presently he scented something alarming and vanished into the
thick pine woods.
One evening I sat watching a number of deer feeding on a terrace of a
steep mountain side. Suddenly a lion leaped out, landing on the neck
of one. Evidently the deer was off balance and on a steep slope. The
impact of the lion knocked him over, but like a flash he was upon his
feet again. Top-heavy with the lion, he slid several yards down a
steep place and fell over a precipice. The lion was carried with him.
I found both dead on the rocks below.
The lion is a master of woodcraft. He understands the varying sounds
and silences of the forest. He either hides and lies in wait or slips
unsuspected upon his victim. He slips upon game even more stealthily
than man; and in choosing the spot to wait for a victim he usually
chooses wisely and, alert waits, if necessary, for a prolonged time.
He leaps upon the shoulders and neck of horse, deer, or sheep, and
then grabs the victim’s throat in his teeth. Generally the victim
quickly succumbs. If a lion or lioness misses in leaping, it commonly
turns away to seek another victim. Rarely does it pursue or put up a
fight.
A friend wished a small blue mule on me. It had been the man’s
vacation pack animal. The mule loitered round, feeding on the
abundant grass near my cabin. The first snow came. Twenty-four hours
later the mule was passing a boulder near my cabin when a lion leaped
upon him and throttled him. Tracks and scattered hair showed that the
struggle had been intense though brief.
Not a track led to the boulder upon which the lion had lain in wait,
and, as the snow had fallen twenty-four or more hours before the
tragedy, he must have been there at least twenty-four hours, and he
may have waited twice as long.
Another time I frightened a lion from a cliff where he was waiting for
a near-by flock of bighorn sheep to come within leaping distance.
Though it was nearly forty-eight hours since snow had ceased falling,
not a track led to the lion’s watching place or blind.
The lion probably is the game hog of the wilds. Often I have read his
red records in the snow. On one occasion he killed nine mountain sheep
in one attack. He ate a few pounds of one of them and never returned
to the kill. On another occasion he killed eleven domestic sheep in
one night. Inside of twenty-four hours a lion killed a doe, a fawn, a
porcupine, a grouse, and was making a try for a mountain sheep when I
appeared on snowshoes. He seems to prefer colts or horses for food.
[Illustration:
_Photo. by Enos A. Mills_
_Johnny, My Grizzly Cub_]
[Illustration:
_Drawing by Will James_
_Echo Mountain Grizzly_]
Mr. J. A. McGuire, editor of _Outdoor Life_, who has made special
investigations concerning the killings of mountain lions, estimates
that a lion will kill a deer every week if he has the opportunity to
do so. From personal experience I have known him to kill four deer in
a single week.
On one occasion, when I was hidden and watching the carcass of a deer
which a lion had killed to see what carnivorous animal might come to
the feast, a mountain lion walked quietly and unalertly to it and
commenced to eat. After a few minutes the lion suddenly bristled up
and spat in the direction from which a grizzly bear presently
appeared. With terrible snarling and threatening, the lion held on to
the prize until the grizzly was within a few feet. He then leaped
toward the grizzly with a snarl, struck at it, and dashed into the
woods. The grizzly, without even looking round to see where the lion
had gone, began eating.
From many experiences I believe that much of the killing of domestic
and wild animals attributed to bears is done by lions. The lion
prefers warm blood and fresh meat for each meal, and will kill daily
if there is opportunity. I have known bears to follow mountain lions
evidently for the purpose of obtaining food. One day I came upon the
recently killed carcass of a cow. Only mountain lion tracks led to it
and from it. The following night I spent at a near-by ranch house, and
the rancher informed me that on the previous day he had discovered a
bear eating the carcass of this cow which he accused the bear of
killing. The lion is a most capable raider of ranches, and colts,
horses, sheep, pigs, and poultry are his prizes.
In northern New Mexico one day I saw a lion bounding across an opening
carrying a tame sheep in its mouth. On another occasion I saw a lion
carrying off a deer that apparently weighed much more than the lion
itself. The lion appeared to have the deer by the shoulder, and it was
resting on the lion’s shoulders in such a way that I do not believe it
touched the ground.
I suppose when the lion makes a kill in an out-of-the-way place, where
he may eat with comparative safety, he does not take the trouble to
carry or to drag the victim off. Often, of course, the kill is made
for the benefit of the young, and hence must be transported to the
den.
It is quite true that he will sometimes wander back to his kill day
after day and feast upon it. It is also true, when food is scarce,
that lions will eat almost anything, even though they have nothing to
do with the killing. They have been trapped at the bait that was out
for bears: and so, though a lion prefers blood and warm meat, he will
return to his kill to feast, or, if food is scarce, gladly eat
whatever he can obtain.
From many observations I judge that after eating he prefers to lie
down for a few hours in some sunny or secluded spot, or on a
many-branched limb generally well up toward the top of the tree but
sometimes not more than ten feet above the earth.
The lion has extreme curiosity. He will follow travellers for hours if
there is opportunity to keep out of sight while doing so. Often during
long snowshoe trips I have returned over the route first travelled.
Lion tracks in the snow showed that I was repeatedly followed for
miles. In a number of places, where I had taken a long rest, the lion
had crept up close, so that he could easily watch me; and on a few
occasions he must have been within a few feet of me.
While walking through a forest in the Medicine Bow Mountains I was
startled and knocked down by a glancing blow of a tree limb. This limb
had evidently broken off under the weight of a lion. The lion also
came tumbling down but caught a claw on a limb and saved himself from
striking the earth. Evidently in his curiosity to see me he had leaned
out too far on a weak limb. He fled in confusion, perhaps even more
frightened than myself.
The mountain lion is not ferocious. Mr. Roosevelt, in summing up its
characteristics, concluded that it would be no more dangerous to sleep
in woods populated with mountain lions than if they were so many
ordinary cats.
In addition to years of camping in the wilds in all sorts of places
and under all conditions of weather I have talked with careful
frontiersmen, skillful hunters and trappers, and these people
uniformly agreed with what I have found to be true--that the instances
of mountain lions attacking human beings are exceedingly rare. In each
of these cases the peculiar action of the lion and the comparative
ineffectiveness of his attacks indicated that he was below normal
mentally or nearly exhausted physically.
Two other points of agreement are: Rarely does any one under ordinary
conditions see a lion; and just as rarely does one hear its call. Of
the dozen or more times I have heard the screech of the lion, on three
occasions there was a definite cause for the cry--on one a mother
frantically sought her young, which had been carried off by a trapper;
and twice the cry was a wail, in each instance given by the lion
calling for its mate, recently slain by a hunter.
During the past thirty years I have investigated dozens of stories
told of lions leaping upon travellers from cliffs or tree limbs, or of
other stealthy attacks. When run down each of these proved to be an
invention; in most cases not a lion or even lion track had been seen.
Two instances of lion attacks are worth mentioning. One night in
California a lion leaped from a cliff, struck a man, knocked him down,
and then ran away. Out of this incident have come numerous stories of
lion ferocity. The lion was tracked, however, and the following day
the pursuing hunter saw it crossing an opening. It suddenly clawed and
hit at a boulder. Then, going on, it apparently ran into a tree, and
fought that. As it started on the hunter shot it. This beast was badly
emaciated, had a swollen face from an ulcerated tooth, and was nearly,
if not entirely, blind.
Another instance apparently was of a weak-minded lion. As though to
attack, it came toward a little ten-year-old girl in Idaho. She struck
it over the head with a bridle she was carrying. Her brother hurried
to the rescue with a willow fishing pole. Together they beat the lion
off and escaped with a few bad scratches. Yet had this been a lion of
average strength and braveness he must have killed or severely injured
both.
The mountain lion rivals the shark, the devilfish, and the grizzly in
being the cause of ferocious tales. The fact that he takes refuge on
limbs as a place of lookout to watch for people or other objects, and
that he frequently follows people for hours through the woods without
their ever seeing him--and, I suppose, too, the very fact that he is
so rarely seen--make him a sort of storm centre, as it were, for
blood-curdling stories.
Through years I investigated plausible accounts of the ferocity of
mountain lions. These investigations brought little information, but
they did disclose the fact that there are a few types of lion tales
which are told over and over again, with slight local variations.
These tales commonly are without the slightest basis of fact. They are
usually revamped by a clever writer, a frightened hunter, or an
interesting story teller, as occasions offer. One of the commonest of
the oft-told tales that have come to me through the years is as
follows:
“Late Saturday evening, while Mr. and Mrs. Simpson were returning from
the village through the woods, they were attacked by a half-starved
mountain lion. The lion leaped out upon them from brush by the
roadside and attempted to seize Mr. Simpson. Though an old man, he put
up a fight, and at last beat off the lion with the butt of the buggy
whip.”
Sometimes this is a family and the time of day is early morning.
Sometimes the lion is ferocious instead of half-starved. Sometimes it
is of enormous size. Once in a while he leaps from a cliff or an
overhanging tree limb. Generally he chews and claws someone up pretty
badly, and occasionally attempts to carry off one of the children.
Many times my letter addressed to one of the party attacked is
returned unclaimed. Sometimes my letter to the postmaster or the
sheriff of the locality is returned with the information: “No such
party known.” Now and then I ask the sheriff, the postmaster, or the
storekeeper some questions concerning this attack, and commonly their
replies are: “It never happened”; “It’s a pipe dream”; “A pure fake”;
or “Evidently whoever told you that story had one or two drinks too
many.”
One day I came out of the woods in the rear of a saw-mill. I was
making my way to the living room of the place, between logs and lumber
piles. Right round the corner of a slab heap I caught sight of a
mountain lion just as it leaped at me. It missed me intentionally, and
at once wheeled and rose up to play with me. In the two or three
seconds that elapsed between the time I had my first glimpse of it and
when I realized it was a pet I had almost concluded that, after all, a
lion may be a ferocious animal.
On one occasion, when I was on a cliff at the edge of a grassy
opening, I was astonished to see a coyote trot leisurely across and
just before he disappeared in the woods a lion appear on the opposite
side of the opening, following contentedly along the trail of the
coyote. The next day I again saw this friendly pair, but on this
occasion the lion was leading and the coyote following. Afterward I
saw their tracks a number of times.
Just why they were associated in this friendly manner we can only
conjecture. It will be readily seen that the coyote, which has all the
wisdom of a fox, might follow a game-hog lion about and thus, with
little effort, get a substantial and satisfactory food supply. But why
the lion should willingly associate with a coyote is not quite clear.
Perhaps this association proved to be of some advantage to the lion in
his killing, or it may have been just one of those peculiar,
unaccounted-for attachments occasionally seen between animals.
In any discussion concerning the mountain lion, or, for that matter,
any living animal, hardly can the last word be said concerning the
character of the individual of the species. Individuals vary, and now
and then a mountain lion, as well as a human being, shows marked and
peculiar traits. These may be the result of unusual alertness and
sheer curiosity, or they may be subnormal, and cruel or murderous.