Felis Concolor. Linn.

Nearly approaching to the Jaguar in size and form, but obviously distinguished from him at the first glance, by the total absence of spots, the Puma, Couguar, or, as he was once called, the American Lion, occupies the second place among the cats of the New World, over nearly the whole of which he was formerly spread, from Canada and the United States in the North, to the very extremity of Patagonia in the South. From a large portion of this immense expanse of country he appears, however, to have been of late years in a great measure, if not entirely, rooted out; and it is seldom that he is now heard of in the vicinity of that civilization, which[50] involves, as a necessary consequence, either the complete extinction, or, at least, the gradual diminution and dispersion to more secure and sheltered habitations, of all the more savage and obnoxious beasts. For his title of the American Lion he was, in a great degree, indebted to an absurd notion on the part of the early colonists, which was even shared by many naturalists, that he was, in reality, neither more nor less than a degenerate variety of that far more noble animal. This opinion has, however, long since given way before the prevalence of sounder views; and he is now universally recognised as forming a species clearly distinguishable from every other, by a combination of characters which it is impossible to mistake.

Almost the only striking point of resemblance between him and the Lion consists in the uniform sameness of his colour, which on the upper parts of his body is of a bright silvery fawn, the tawny hairs being terminated by whitish tips: beneath and on the inside of the limbs he is nearly white, and more completely so on the throat, chin, and upper lip. The head has an irregular mixture of black and gray; the outside of the ears, especially at the base, the sides of the muzzle from which the whiskers take their origin, and the extremity of the tail, are black. The latter is not terminated, as in the Lion, by a brush of hair; neither has the Puma any vestige of a mane. His length from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail is commonly about four feet, and his tail measures above half as much more, being just sufficiently long to suffer its extremity to trail upon the ground. His head is remarkably small and rounded, with a broad and somewhat obtuse muzzle; and his body is proportionably more slender and less elevated than that of the[51] Lion. His young, like those of the latter animal, have a peculiar livery, consisting in spots of a darker shade than the rest of their fur, scattered over every part of the body, but only visible in a particular light, and............