100 Texas Wildflowers Book

Outstanding natural history of the cougar, or mountain lion, with emphasis on the cougar in North America; detailed are stories of the cougar among Native Americans, mystical and spiritual beliefs of the Indian tribes toward the animal, the cougar's reputation in colonial times and throughout the days of the American west, the cougar's relationships with other animals of North America, and the struggle--usually won by man--between the cougar and human "civilization." Like many other predators, the cougar was classified as "vermin" and subject to extermination by bounty hunting. The fact that it survived--and perhaps thrived--after other predators like the wolf and grizzly bear were more or less wiped out in 98% of their previous habitat is explained. Danz has great chapters on cougar lore and a detailed chart of cougar attacks on people from the earliest recorded one in 1751 to the mid-1990s.