CHAPTER XXIV
baby pumas
MY acquaintance with Pumas began when I was a little girl of six years.
At that time we lived in a log cabin perched high like an eagle's nest in the aerie heights of the grim Sierra Nevadas.
The wild animals were very plentiful and of many varieties.
Grizzly and black bear, wildcats, wolves, coyotes, and mountain lion or Puma, were abundant.
The lakes abounded in many varieties of beautiful water fowl and many different kinds of fish. My brother was the crack fisherman of the family and kept our table well supplied with the finny fellows. We had a few domestic fowls. The prize pair were two fine, handsome turkeys. We were very proud of them and the day that we discovered our hen turkey had built herself a nest in a hollow tree and had laid eighteen beautiful speckled eggs, we were indeed a happy lot of youngsters.
Each day we ran up the mountain side to the old hollow tree and took a peep at Mrs. Turkey sitting contentedly on her nest and each night at bed time we speculated on the colour, size and texture of the forthcoming baby turkeys.
At the end of the second week, my father soberly apprised us of the fact that some wild animal had been to the nest in the old hollow tree and had devoured Mrs. Turkey and eaten all the eggs. We were so horrified we did not dare go near the empty nest, and for several days, we mourned in secret for our beloved bird. Father "guessed" it was a coyote, but there was no way of telling, for the ground was too rocky to be impressed by tracks.
Several days later, one of Dainty's (my pet hen) chickens got lost. I could hear the faint "peep peep" away yonder in the brush, so I took up the trail and followed the sound. It brought me to some tangled brush and a fallen log. I peeped into the old log and there lay two spotted kittens, blind and helpless, and their little tails striped with many black rings.
I knew I had stumbled into the lair of some wild animal and I ran home as fast as my short legs would carry me, but not before I had taken a horrified look at a heap of turkey feathers lying beside the log.
Luckily the lady of the house was out when I called. The lost chicken found his own way home. I didn't trouble about looking for him any more.
The Puma babies arrive about the first of May. Usually they are from two to four in number. They are spotted and ring-tailed like the little fellows I have described in the hollow log.
The eyes open before the ninth day. Their pretty black spots and markings usually disappear by the sixth month, leaving them fawn grey in colour.
The pretty tawny coat is set off by a patch of white on either side of the muzzle and black lips. About the 18th or 20th day the milk teeth appear and the Puma babies get ready for a little bite of solid food. Mother Puma weans them between the third and fourth month and the babies learn to depend on game for sustenance.
Beetles, snails, toads and small creatures are their "huckleberry" during the first few months of their existence, but it’s not long before they can stalk a rabbit, a gopher or a ground hog.
They roll, growl and worry their prey just like the kittens of the back yard do.
They are frolicsome fellows, full of fun and alert every minute they are awake. When mother brings home a delicacy, they purr their delight and lick her face with their red, rough tongues in dumb appreciation; but when they get disappointed, they cry like a child. At two years of age, they are pretty well grown and are real dignified Pumas. Their foreheads are full and broad and they look quite learned.
Master Puma is very fond of fishing.
Sometimes he goes fishing and succeeds in catching them alive. He is a good all round sport and a great fellow for tree climbing. He can climb a tree, ensconce himself comfortably on a limb and laugh himself sick at a raging Grizzly.
Sometimes he goes bird nesting and eats all the
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| Courtesy of the New York Zoological Society |
| Baby Puma is a darling little kitty and loves his bottle just as all babies do. |
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| "Mike," of Central Park Zoological Gardens |
| "Mike" was as loving and gentle as a kitten until an ogre in human shape burnt his nose with a lighted match. That act of cruelty soured his disposition. I don't wonder; do you? |
This big American cat has a good disposition and can be easily tamed; but if anything occurs in his early youth to sour his temper, he rarely becomes sweetened afterward. I know a Puma named "Mike," who seemed to love everybody in his youth, but an ogre in human shape burned his nose with a lighted match, and he has been embittered ever since. You can hardly blame him. I don’t.
The Puma is found from Canada to the straights of Magellan.
They are often called Couger, Panther and Mountain Lion.
They are well liked by the gauchos of the Argentine, who call them a name meaning "the friend of man."
They often follow people out of curiosity, but I know of no instance where they have attacked man. My father drove a heavy wagon drawn by two horses a distance of forty miles through the mountains one bright moonlight night. His tination was the cemetery and his mission to inter a deceased member of the family. Two Pumas came out of the woods and followed the team with its gruesome passenger over half the way; but they did not offer to attack.
The Puma is a jolly fellow; he is usually full of high spirits and playful tricks.
Next to the jaguar he is the largest cat in the western hemisphere.
His food is pigs, deer, sheep, rabbits and smaller animals.
He dreads man and gives him a wide berth.
They are handsome and graceful and not terrifying like the jaguar.