It is a splendid tree-climber. It can mount a tree with the agility of a cat; and although so large an animal, it climbs by means of its claws--not by hugging, after the manner of the bears and opossums. While climbing a tree, its claws can be heard crackling along the bark as it mounts upward. It sometimes lies "squatted" along a horizontal branch, a lower one, for the purpose of springing upon deer, or such other animals as it wishes to prey upon. The ledge of a cliff is also a favourite haunt, and such are known among the hunters as "panther-ledges." It selects such a position in the neighbourhood of some watering-place, or, if possible, one of the salt or soda springs (licks) so numerous in America. Here it is more certain that its vigil will not be a protracted one. Its prey--elk, deer, antelope, or buffalo--soon appears beneath, unconscious of the dangerous enemy that cowers over them. When fairly within reach, the cougar springs, and pouncing down upon the shoulders of the victim, buries its claws in the flesh. The terrified animal starts forward, leaps from side to side, dashes into the papaw thickets, or breasts the dense cane-brake, in hopes of brushing off its relentless rider. All in vain! Closely clasping its neck, the cougar clings on, tearing its victim in the throat, and drinking its blood throughout the wild gallop. Faint and feeble, the ruminant at length totters and falls, and the fierce destroyer squats itself along the body, and finishes its red repast. If the cougar can overcome several animals at a time, it will kill them all, although but the twentieth part may be required to satiate its hunger. Unlike the lion in this, even in repletion it will kill. With it, destruction of life seems to be an instinct. There is a very small animal, and apparently a very helpless one, with which the cougar occasionally quarrels, but often with ill success--this is the Canada porcupine. Whether the cougar ever succeeds in killing one of these creatures is not known, but that it attacks them is beyond question, and its own death is often the result. The quills of the Canada porcupine are slightly barbed at their extremities; and when stuck into the flesh of a living animal, this arrangement causes them to penetrate mechanically deeper and deeper as the animal moves. That the porcupine can itself discharge them to some distance, is not true, but it is true that it can cause them to be easily _detached_; and this it does when rashly seized by any of the predatory animals. The result is, that these remarkable spines become fast in the tongue, jaws, and lips of the cougar, or any other creature which may make an attack on that seemingly unprotected little animal. The fisher (_Mustela Canadensis_) is said to be the only animal that can kill the porcupine with impunity. It fights the latter by first throwing it upon its back, and then springing upon its upturned belly, where the spines are almost entirely wanting.