Again it retreated and again swung towards me, and thus we fought, I succeeding at each swing in doing my adversary some damage. Once it struck me on the left shoulder with the point of its lower jaw, sending me reeling to the ground. Wildly I sprang to my feet and dashed with renewed vigour into the struggle, cutting, slashing, and screaming continually, without presence of mind enough to run or think of my gun. Finally, in maddened desperation, I made a frantic slash as the horrible thing was swinging towards me, and by the merest good fortune caught it fairly behind the head with the sharpest and broadest part of the machete, almost severing its head from its body. Its tail uncoiled from the limb above and its sinuous body fell with a crash to the ground. A second later there was another fall--myself. I lay there trembling with weakness, fully conscious, but dripping with perspiration and too much exhausted to stand. After some time I remembered the jaguar and the live snake which lay but a few yards away, and at once sprang to my feet, caught up my gun, and turned to investigate. I speedily discovered the reason for the snake's quiescence. The jaguar was rapidly disappearing down the capacious throat of his successful enemy. Again I took careful aim, and put the whole load of large shot fairly through the body of the snake about two feet from its head and about two inches from the nose of the jaguar, which was being swallowed whole. Having killed the snake, I secured the skin of the jaguar, which measured from tip of tail to nose nine feet four inches; it was a male, and beautifully marked. The constrictor that killed the jaguar measured twenty-nine feet two inches in length and twenty-eight inches round at the largest part. The one with which I had the encounter was twenty-five feet long and twenty-two inches round. I reached camp about noon, covered with blood, but proudly carrying my jaguar-skin, and just for fun I informed the Spaniards that I had killed the animal with my ·22. They examined the skin for the bullet-hole, but failed to find it. Thereupon I calmly told them that I always shot animals like that in the eye, so as not to spoil the skin! They now think the "Gringo" a mighty hunter indeed. OUT OF THE SKIES. TOLD BY LIONEL BEAKBANE AND SET DOWN BY L. H. BRENNAN. In 1907 I was employed as a cowboy on the Wally Ranch, situated a little to the north of Fort Saskatchewan, in Alberta, Canada. It was there that an incident occurred which I shall never forget as long as I live. Such a thing has never happened before in Canada, so far as I am aware, and I hope it will never happen again.