United States or New Caledonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


He had dug a small hole in the walk and had laid an imaginary train of powder thereto; and, as he sought refuge in the laurels from the inevitable explosion, I heard him murmur: "`My God! said the Czar, `my plans are frustrated!" It seemed an excellent occasion for being a black puma. Harold liked black pumas, on the whole, as well as any animal we were familiar with.

This was because on several occasions women who had gone out alone were killed by pumas. Evidently in this one locality the habit of at least occasional man-eating has become chronic with a species which elsewhere is the most cowardly, and to man the least dangerous, of all the big cats.

My Indians lay down on their bellies, stretching themselves out in the sun across the logs, and, save for the subdued but fierce glimmer under their lazy lids, they seemed as pleasant and harmless as four tawny pumas a-sunning on the rocks.

In this part of the country they live altogether on the guanacos which have died a natural death, or as more commonly happens, have been killed by the pumas. I believe, from what I saw in Patagonia, that they do not on ordinary occasions extend their daily excursions to any great distance from their regular sleeping-places.

The little man pushed the log on the fireplace with his moccasined foot before he replied: "Of a puma, m'sieu'." Sir Duke smoothed it with his hand. "I didn't know there were pumas here." "Faith, Sir Duke " Sir Duke Lawless turned on Shon quickly. "You're forgetting again, Shon. There's no 'Sir Dukes' between us.

We spent the night on the driest spot we could find on the banks of the lake. Blazing fires were lighted to keep jaguars, pumas, and boas at a distance. Next morning, loaded with the spoils of the chase, we commenced our voyage homewards.

This is not because bears are the enemies of other wild things, for we really kill very little except beetles and other insects, frogs and lizards, and little things like mice and chipmunks. We are not as the wolves, the coyotes, the pumas, or the weasels, which live on the lives of other animals, and which every other thing in the woods regards as its sworn foe.

I was more concerned about my dear little sister's safety than for that of her monkeys. At first I thought of telling her to run back to the hut; but then it flashed across me that the pumas might see her and follow. So I exclaimed, "Get behind me, Ellen; and we will shout together, and try and frighten the beasts. That will, at all events, bring John to our help."

It was useless to contend; the charm was upon us; the first day at the Fair had us at last in thrall, and we watched the trained lions, tigers, bears, and pumas, admired the ponies, applauded the dogs, and wondered at the plucky woman trainer, without a thought beyond the passing moment.

By taking to the trees we might have saved our lives, but we should certainly have lost our mules. Both pumas and tigers kill the little beasts when they come across stragglers. And it is well that they do, for otherwise the woods would be full of them, though fortunately they do not multiply as fast as our pigs, having only two or three in a litter.