"Puma" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him from his approaching prey. How remarkable it is that besides the lion and tiger, almost all the other large cats are arboreal in their habits, and almost all have ocellated or spotted skins, which must certainly tend to blend them with the background of foliage; while the one exception, the puma, has an ashy-brown uniform fur, and has the habit of clinging so closely to a limb of a tree while waiting for his prey to pass beneath as to be hardly ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... seized his own son, aged six, and dashed his brains out on the rocks because the little fellow dropped a basket of sea-eggs he was carrying. The woman nearest to him is his wife, and she raised no protest. You might as well try to fondle a hungry puma. I am the only man they have ever spared, and they spared me solely because they thought I gave them power over their enemies. If you had a cannon, you might drive them off. As it is, we shall be compelled to fight for our lives; they are brave ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... it not that the man who always went with me as guide and muleteer is an Indian, and has, I am convinced, a knowledge of some of these places. He was with me all the time I was out there. I saved his life when a puma sprang upon him, and he more than once hinted that he could make me a rich man, but I had no inclination that way, my income being sufficient for all my wants. Still, on the chance that he is alive—and he was about thirty when ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... H. The Naturalist in La Plata, New York, 1892. Not about the Southwest or even North America, but Hudson's chapters on "The Puma," "Some Curious Animal Weapons," "The Mephitic Skunk," "Humming Birds," "The Strange Instincts of Cattle," "Horse and Man," etc. come home to the Southwest. Few writers tend to make readers so aware; no other has written so delightfully ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... of perils, named Celestino Rey—and all things about, the spears, guns, skins, shields, even the grim shadows, were but references to the text. The dinner was perfect. A tray of wines and a sheaf of cheroots were placed upon the balcony, at length, with two chairs covered with puma skins. The Chinese assisted Rey thither, and when they ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... sister and her family, and we had only just time to rescue ourselves and the children. I was the last to leave the house which we were never to see again. I could not decide which of my possessions to take with me, so I seized up the skin of a puma that I had shot on another memorable occasion, and bore it off on my shoulder, like Jason carrying the golden fleece, and that was all that was left of my personal property. Ah! it needs patience to conquer ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... seen at a great height, soaring over a certain spot in the most graceful circles. On some occasions I am sure that they do this only for pleasure, but on others, the Chileno countryman tells you that they are watching a dying animal, or the puma devouring its prey. If the condors glide down, and then suddenly all rise together, the Chileno knows that it is the puma which, watching the carcass, has sprung out to drive away the robbers. Besides feeding on carrion, the condors frequently attack young goats and lambs; ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... great auk, Labrador duck, upland plover, heath hen, wild turkey; puma, gray wolf, Canada lynx, black ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... her—ashen-dead fairness of hair and pale skin with those pellucid eyes beneath dust-brown brows—all united in an effort of innocence that surpassed itself and became the blandness of a doll. She was curiously immobile, sat very quietly, and moved slowly, graceful in the way that a heavily-built puma is graceful, because of the thoroughly sound construction of her bones and muscles. Killigrew, as he watched her, was vastly intrigued by what he phrased to himself as the "innocent sweet corruption of her look." ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Tiger; its Ferocity and Power; and of the Curious Modes which are adopted for its Capture and Destruction.—Also about the Puma or American Lion, and introduces some Hunting Scenes in North and South America, with other ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... mounts in pursuit, and got up just in time to see it enter a clump of brushwood, not fifty paces across. An Indian, who acted as our guide, went into the thicket after it, gun in hand. A dreadful roar, which terrified our horses, was followed by the appearance of the infuriated animal. It was a puma, or panther without spots, which galloped in a circle round M. de Montholon's horse, and then retreated into a larger clump of trees, where we thought it prudent to leave it, as our only arm was a single-barrelled small-bore rifle. Somewhat further on we saw a big cloud ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... an animal in Patagonia called the puma. It is like a cat, but it is much stronger. Often it ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw
... the hail-storm and the thunder, From the vampire and the condor, From the gust upon the river, From the sudden earthquake shiver, From the trip of mule or donkey, From the midnight howling monkey, From the stroke of knife or dagger, From the puma and the jaguar, From the horrid boa-constrictor That has scared us in the pictur', From the Indians of the Pampas Who would dine upon their grampas, From every beast and vermin That to think of sets us squirmin', ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... not originally arise from any forcible subjugation of them by man, but from a natural amity with them which grew up in the beginning from common interests, pursuits and affections. Thus the chetah of India (and probably the puma of Brazil) from far-back times took to hunting in the company of his two-legged and bow-and-arrow-armed friend, with whom he divided the spoil. W. H. Hudson (2) declares that the Puma, wild and fierce though it is, and capable of killing the largest game, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... approaching from it. At its head were two nobles, whose appearance far exceeded anything Roger had hitherto seen. They wore cuirasses formed of thin plates of gold, and over these mantles of gorgeous feather work. On the head of one was a helmet of wood, fashioned to represent the head of the puma, or Mexican lion. The other wore a helmet of silver, above which was a cluster of variegated feathers, sprinkled with precious stones. They wore heavy collars, bracelets, and earrings of gold and precious ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... as if this symbol was presenting itself to him at the very time when he needed the greatest moral strength himself; and the animal appeared like a living fetich, a hint from Those Above. He followed the movements of the puma eagerly. The tree where the turkeys sat stood near; he had heard their gobblings long ago without paying any attention to them. But now they explained the movements of the gigantic cat; he was creeping up to the birds. The puma approached ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... The Puma or Cougar, of North and South America, is generally called a lion, but he has no mane, or tufted tail, and when young, his pale, fawn coat, is striped with blackish brown. These marks however, disappear with age. He is the largest of the feline tribe on that continent, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... he returned; "but old, very old in experience, and—stay, what was it that you were asking about? Ah, the big game. Well, we have plenty of that in some of the larger of the islands; we have the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the puma, that great man-monkey the orang-utan, or, as it is called here, the mias, besides wild pigs, deer, and innumerable smaller ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is a puma—the South American lion," I sang out. "Oh, if we can but get a shot at him ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... of some big puma cub warming itself at a hearth like a common tabby cat, a tame puma thrusting out its claws and turning its yellow eyes up to its owner—tame, but with infinite possibilities of danger. For the information which Nash had given seemed to remove all his distrust of the moment ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... or Puma (Felis hippolestes) In 1897 it was considered extremely rare; probably not more than a dozen were then living in the Park; since then it seems to have increased greatly and is now somewhat common in the mountainous parts. Their numbers are given ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... it measured five feet from the extremity of its head to the beginning of its tail. The yellow color of its hair was relieved by streaks and regular oblong spots of black, which contrasted with the white of its chest. Herbert recognized it as the ferocious rival of the tiger, as formidable as the puma, which is the rival of ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... pack give mouth. The quarry kept to the cover of the thickets for several miles, impeding the chase until the last covert in the chain was reached, where a fight occurred with the lead hound. Don Pierre was the first to reach the scene, and caught several glimpses of a monster puma as he slunk away through the Brazil brush, leaving one of the Don's favorite hounds lacerated to the bone. But the pack passed on, and, lifting the wounded dog to a vaquero's saddle, we followed, ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... knew that the great jaguar was found in Peru, as well as the puma and black bear, the captain had not supposed it likely that any of these creatures frequented the barren western slopes of the mountains, but he now reflected that there were lions in the deserts of Africa, and that the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... the mountains Donald reached his log cabin on the Silver Creek. The monkey, however, did not find quite so immediate a welcome as himself from Donald's wife. The only pet her children had ever seen before was a baby puma, which the miner had picked out of the stream one day in a half-drowned state. Donald had mistaken it for a kitten of some new brand, and it was not until some weeks later, when it sprang upon his little girl and buried his claws in her neck, that he realised what sort of plaything—the puma is ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... of these shapes are circular. The only (in the strict sense) symmetrical shapes found are of unmistakably animal origin, and it is interesting to notice the gradual return of these to the eurhythmic form; puma, bird, frog, etc., gradually changing into head, tail and leg excrescences, and then handles and nodes (rectangular panels), upon a round bowl or jar L, as shown in the figures. In fact, in ancient American pottery,[7] at ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... starvation, so I herded cattle, that being the only thing I knew anything about—how to ride—and slept out on the lowlands sometimes under a native mat and sometimes under the kindly stars. Then we had a revolution and cattle raids, and one night I came pretty near being chewed up by a puma—and so it went. I made a little money in rawhides after I got to know the natives, and I'm going back to make some more; and you are going with me when we get things straightened out. I wouldn't have come home except that I heard you had been turned out neck and crop from Kennedy Square. One ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I had hidden away an' she showed me how to git away, an' I got. Then I got lost in the mountains, an' would have starved to death only I run down some sort o' a wild beast that had two legs broken in a fall over the rocks. I killed the beast—I reckon it was a puma—with some rocks, an' lived on the meat fer nigh on to a week. Then, after all kinds o' adventures in the mountains, I reached here, an' here I am, an' so happy to see yeou I don't know ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... before perceiving me. I had no weapon with me but an old chisel, and was getting ready to defend myself if it should make a spring, when it turned around hastily and trotted off. I did not obtain a very distinct view of it, but I could see its colour was that of the Puma, or American Lion, although it was rather too small for that species. The Puma is not a common animal in the Amazons forests. I did not see altogether more than a dozen skins, in the possession of the natives. The fur is of ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates |
