The fourteen cougars we killed showed the widest variation not only in size but in color, as shown by the following table. Some were as slaty-gray as deer when in the so-called “blue”; others, rufous, almost as bright as deer in the “red.” I use these two terms to describe the color phases; though in some instances the tint was very undecided. The color phase evidently has nothing to do with age, sex, season, or locality. In this table the first cougar is the one killed by Stewart, the sixth by Webb. The length is measured in a straight line, “between uprights,” from the nose to the extreme tip of the tail, when the beast was stretched out. The animals were weighed with the steelyard and also spring scales. Before measuring, we pulled the beast out as straight as we possibly could; and as the biggest male represents about, or very nearly, the maximum for the species, it is easy to see that there can be no basis for the talk one sometimes hears about ten and eleven foot cougars. No cougar, measured at all fairly, has ever come anywhere near reaching the length of nine feet. The fresh hide can easily be stretched a couple of feet extra. Except the first two, all were full-grown; the biggest male was nearly three times the size of the smallest female. ───────────┬───────────┬───────────────────────┬───────────┬─────────── Sex. │ Color. │ Length. │ Weight. │ Date. ───────────┼───────────┼───────────────────────┼───────────┼─────────── │ │ Feet. Inches. │ Pounds. │ 1901. │ │ │ │ [1]Female. │Blue. │ 4 11 │ 47 │January 19 [1]Female. │Red. │ 4 11½ │ 51 │February 12 Female. │Blue. │ 6 │ 80 │January 14 Female. │Red. │ 6 4 │ 102 │January 28 Female. │Blue. │ 6 5 │ 105 │February 12 Female. │Blue. │ 6 5 │ 107 │January 18 Female. │Red. │ 6 9 │ 108 │January 24 Female. │Blue. │ 6 7 │ 118 │January 15 Female. │Blue. │ 6 7 │ 120 │January 31 Female. │Red. │ 6 9 │ 124 │February 5 Female. │Blue. │ 7 │ 133 │February 8 Male. │Red. │ 7 6 │ 160 │February 13 Male. │Blue. │ 7 8 │ 164 │January 27 Male. │Red. │ 8 │ 227 │February 14 ───────────┴───────────┴───────────────────────┴───────────┴─────────── Footnote 1: Young.