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But there is only one true representative of the genus Felis, and that is the animal in question. This has received many trivial appellations. Among Anglo-American hunters, it is called the panther in their patois, "painter." The absence of stripes, such as those of the tiger or spots, as upon the leopard or rosettes, as upon the jaguar, have suggested the name of the naturalists, concolor.
There can be no doubt whatever that it was a genuine panther, for its skin and bones, handsomely mounted, as taxidermists say, can be seen at any time in the Museum of Natural History in Boston. It is a fine specimen of the New England variety of the Felis concolor and would no doubt have proved an ugly customer to meet on a dark night. No doubt there were panthers larger than that one.
We come now to the most regularly planted and most clearly defined of the main forest belts, composed almost exclusively of two Silver Firs Abies concolor and Abies magnifica extending with but little interruption 450 miles at an elevation of from 5000 to 9000 feet above the sea.
There are no lions or tigers in America, but Europeans have loosely given these names to other species of the same genus, such as the felis onca, or jaguar; F. discolor or jaguarate; and F. concolor, or puma; which last is often called the American lion, and the jaguar is the Mexican tiger.
In its youth A. concolor is a charmingly symmetrical tree with its flat plumy branches arranged in regular whorls around the whitish-gray axis which terminates in a stout, hopeful shoot, pointing straight to the zenith, like an admonishing finger.
Later I had the pleasure of shaking his paw and congratulating him on his bravery. After many futile attempts, at last our opportunity to get a Felis Concolor arrived.
The fertile cones are about three fourths of an inch long, borne on the outside of the plumy branchlets, where they serve to enrich still more the surpassing beauty of this grand winter-blooming goldenrod. We come now to the most regularly planted of all the main forest belts, composed almost exclusively of two noble firs A. concolor and A. magnifica.
Or the spots may disappear and the color become uniform as in Gentiana punctata concolor and the spotless Arum or Arum maculatum immaculatum. Absence of hairs produces forms as Biscutella laevigata glabra; lack of prickles gives the varieties known as inermis, as for instance, Ranunculus arvensis inermis.
They are ordinarily called pyramidal or fastigiate forms, and as far as their history goes, they arise suddenly in large sowings of the normal species. The fastigiate birch was produced in this way by Baumann, the Abies concolor fastigiata by Thibault and Keteleer at Paris, the pyramidal cedar by Paillat, the analogous form of Wellingtonia by Otin.
Their round, cat-like heads and ears, their short black muzzles, their white throats, and pale reddish breasts, told us what they were at a glance. "Panthers!" ejaculated my companion, drawing a long breath, and looking at me with a puzzled air. Yes; they were panthers so called by the hunters, but more properly cougars the felis concolor of the naturalists the lion of America.
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