WINTER.
December, Friday, 1st.—Again we hear strange rumors of the
panther. The creature is now reported to have been in
Oakdale, having crossed the valley from the Black Hills. We hear
that a man went out of a farm-house, about dusk, to pick up chips
from a pile of freshly-cut wood at no great distance, and while
there, he saw among the wood a wild animal, the like of which
he had never seen before, and which he believed to be a
catamount; its eyes glared upon him, and it showed its teeth, with a
hissing kind of noise. This man gave the alarm, and for several
nights the animal was heard in that neighborhood; it was tracked
to a swamp, where a party of men followed it, but although they
heard its cries, and saw its tracks, the ground was so marshy, that
they did not succeed in coming up with it. Such is the story
from Oakdale. Strange as the tale seems, there is nothing
absolutely incredible in it, for wild animals will occasionally stray to
a great distance from their usual haunts. About fifteen years
since, a bear was killed on the Mohawk, some thirty miles from
us. And so late as five-and-forty years ago, there was an alarm
about a panther in West Chester, only twenty or thirty miles
from New York!
Numbers of these animals are still found in the State, particularly in the northern mountainous counties. They are also occa-
