Wild beasts

by J. Hampden Porter

Roosevelt states that a slave on his father’s plantation in Florida was passing through a swamp one night, when he was attacked by a puma. The negro was “a man of colossal size and fierce and determined temper.” Moreover, he carried one of the heavy knives that are used in cutting cane. Both parties were killed after a long and desperate struggle, whose traces were plainly impressed upon the spot. But here it appears that a man was assailed, and that the beast continued its attempts to kill him after discovering that he was armed, and persisted in its attack as long as life lasted.

One evening as the author was riding towards a hacienda in Sinaloa, and was about half a league distant from it, a girl rushed to the edge of a thicket and began to scream for help. Galloping up, it appeared she had just discovered the body of her father, killed apparently by a puma, who lay dead beside him. Life was not extinct, however, although he was very badly wounded. He said that while passing, the bellowing of an ox, mingled with the cries of some kind of beast, induced him to make his way to the scene of action. There he found a large lion, as he called it, engaged in a fight with a steer, whom he had injured severely, and who was rapidly losing blood. As soon as the man appeared, the beast left the ox and made at him. There was scant time to roll his serape around his left arm, and draw the long knife which every ranchero wears in the bota on his right leg, before he found himself in deadly conflict.

In these three anecdotes we have a very clear refutation by facts of several points with regard to this brute’s character, which have been generally accepted as settled.

Wariness and an entire absence of all the sentiments that produce recklessness in man, are as distinctly marked characters among the Felidæ as their peculiar dentition or retractile claws; yet the author was informed by Colonel W. H. Harness that last summer (1893) a very large panther, as the animal is called in West Virginia, walked into an extensive logging camp near the town of Davis at midday; traversed one wing of the long building in which the men employed slept, and without making any demonstration of hostility towards those who fled before him, entered their dining-room and helped himself to the meat on the table; after which he quietly passed out of a side door, and was shot from a window. If this beast had been broken down with age or disabled by accident so that it could not hunt, or if the season and weather had been such as to banish game from the vicinity, its conduct might be comprehensible. This happened with an animal in perfect physical condition, and at a season when the mountains were full of game. The brute also must necessarily have connected all the men it knew anything about with death-dealing firearms, and that it then should have walked into a crowd, and lost its life in this act of seemingly idiotic bravado, simply sets at naught everything that is known of the creature’s character and habits.

Pumas, like Asiatic panthers, are easily caught in traps, but independently of this form of incapacity, they are far from being wanting in sagacity. Cougars are most accomplished hunters, and it has been explained how much that means. One of them, for example, will sometimes trail a human being for a day’s journey without finding what it considers to be a suitable opportunity for making an attack.

The best and most intimate acquaintance with the character of a wild beast comes from those associations involved in domestication. When you have brought up an animal and been with it constantly day by day, the chances of finding out what it is like are better than they could be under any other conditions whatever. Prince Maximilian of Nieuwied, states that the puma is “peculiarly susceptible of domestication.” It does not appear, however, that he made any experiments in this direction, and it may be suspected that if he had, certain reasons for modifying his views upon the animal’s character would have suggested themselves during their course. A cougar is a cat, and in virtue of that fact is, as has been said, of all animals the least susceptible of radical change. Sanderson and Barras make a wide distinction between feline species, considered as amenable or refractory to such influences; and nothing is offered in the way of disparagement to their opinions, provided it be admitted that a young tiger may be a much more amiable and interesting infant than a panther cub, and, according to Gérard, a lion whelp attaches all hearts by its good qualities. But there soon comes a time at which traits inherent in them all are developed, and when they become strikingly alike in all their essential characteristics.

The writer bears in affectionate remembrance a pet “panther” who, from earliest life until his complete and splendid maturity, lived with him upon terms of the closest companionship. Every one who seriously studies anecdotes of brute intelligence and character must necessarily distrust them. Their authors always, either directly or by implication, put inference in the place of observation, or they start with a hypothesis, the tendency of which is to assimilate evidence, and often, no doubt unconsciously, fit facts to their own preconceptions. It is hoped that the records of daily observation here made use of for the purpose of sketching traits of character, may not prove to be without some interest and value, and that their fragmentary and incomplete form will witness to the fact that nothing is given which seemed to be either speculative or unauthentic.

One sultry morning as the author sat at ease in his sala, an Indian entered and said he had heard that the Señor delighted in wild beasts, so that having by the help of God, some saints, and several friends, slain the mother of this little lion in the Golden Mountains, he had brought it there as a mark of respect, and would like to have seven Spanish dollars. Here he unrolled his serape and deposited a ball of indistinctly striped and spotted fur upon the floor. In that manner this puma of pumas came into the keeping of his guardian.

The latter impressed with a sense of the responsibilities attaching to the position in which he was placed, at once sprinkled the cub with red wine and called it Gato,—a procedure it resented as if the spirit of Constantine Capronymus himself had entered into its sinful little body. The rage of infancy, however, does not endure, and Gato shortly “serened himself,” to use the idiom of the country, where these things took place. He inspected his new acquaintance, rubbed up against him, had his head scratched with much complacency, and graciously ate as much as he could hold. Thus we made friends, and the compact was ever after kept by both parties, each in his own way.

The panther’s way was a very simple one. It consisted in looking to the being he had come in contact with for everything he wanted, and resolutely refusing to enter into intimate communications with any one else. Nobody who knew him could say that the least feeling of affection ever warmed his heart, but it was plain enough that while he contemned the human race, one man was tolerated, and a distinction made between him and all others. Some individuals he detested at first sight, and resented the slightest approach to familiarity. For the remainder he entertained a quiet contempt; but as for fearing them, nothing was further from his thoughts. So far as that went, it is very doubtful whether he ever felt any real dread of his guardian. Some feeling akin to respect may have existed in his mind. His powers of observation were keen and quick, he saw that this particular person differed in appearance from those about him, acted differently, and was somehow or other not the same as they. If he got into difficulties, and was likely to suffer the consequences of misconduct, hostilities against him ceased when his friend appeared upon the scene; he understood this perfectly, and took refuge with him when danger threatened. As was said, Gato had no affectionate impulses so far as could be certainly known. When he wanted to be stroked, or was hungry, or wished to play, or felt insecure, he came to his guardian, followed him about, and lay beside him. Moreover, the little savage was jealous. If he beheld a dog it always put him in a passion to see it coming towards his master to be caressed. He would fly to get ahead, dance about, jump on his knee, and growl and show his teeth with every sign of anger against the intruder upon his rights.