CHAPTER V .-- THE COUGAR.
No animal of the chase is so difficult to kill by fair still-hunting as the cougar--that beast of many names, known in the East as panther and painter, in the West as mountain lion, in the Southwest as Mexican lion, and in the southern continent as lion and puma.
Without hounds its pursuit is so uncertain that from the still-hunter's standpoint it hardly deserves to rank as game at all--though, by the way, it is itself a more skilful still-hunter than any human rival.

It prefers to move abroad by night or at dusk; and in the daytime usually lies hid in some cave or tangled thicket where it is absolutely impossible even to stumble on it by chance.

It is a beast of stealth and rapine; its great, velvet paws never make a sound, and it is always on the watch whether for prey or for enemies, while it rarely leaves shelter even when it thinks itself safe.

Its soft, leisurely movements and uniformity of color make it difficult to discover at best, and its extreme watchfulness helps it; but it is the cougar's reluctance to leave cover at any time, its habit of slinking off through the brush, instead of running in the open, when startled, and the way in which it lies motionless in its lair even when a man is within twenty yards, that render it so difficult to still-hunt.
In fact it is next to impossible with any hope of success regularly to hunt the cougar without dogs or bait.

Most cougars that are killed by still-hunters are shot by accident while the man is after other game.
This has been my own experience.