is the habit of the puma to spring upon his prey from an eminence such as a ledge of rocks, a tree, or a slight rise of ground. If he fails to strike his victim, he seldom pursues it for any considerable distance. In northern regions, however, he sometimes pursues the deer when they are almost helpless in the deep snow. When he has seized his victim, he tears open its neck, and laps its blood before he begins to eat. He devours every part of a small animal, but the larger ones he eats only in part – the head, neck, and shoulders – burying the rest.
Very young cubs when captured soon become thoroughly tamed, enjoying the liberty of a house like a dog. When petted they purr like cats and manifest their affection in much the same manner. When displeased they growl, but a roar has never been heard from them. There is one drawback to a tame puma, however, says Brehm. When he has great affection for his master and likes to play with him, he hides at his approach and unexpectedly jumps on him. One can imagine how startling and uncomfortable would be such an ill-timed caress. An old puma, when captured, sometimes rejects all food, preferring starvation to the loss of liberty.
Every movement of the puma is full of grace and vigor; he is said to make leaps of eighteen feet or more. His sight is keenest in the dusk and by night; his sense of smell is deficient but his hearing is extremely acute.
The lair in which the female brings forth her young is usually in a shallow cavern on the face of some inaccessible cliff or ledge of rocks.
In the southern states, Audubon says, where there are no caves or rocks, the lair of the puma is generally in a very dense thicket or in a canebrake. It is a rude sort of bed of sticks, weeds, leaves and grasses. The number of cubs is from two to five. In captivity two usually are born, but sometimes only one.
THE HOLLY TREE
O reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly tree?
The eye that contemplates it, well perceives
Its glossy leaves,
Ordered by an intelligence so wise
As might confound the atheist's sophistries.
Below a circling fence its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly tree
Can emblem see
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.
Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly tree.
And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly leaves a sober hue display
Less bright than they,
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly tree?
THE LEMON
THE lemon is the fruit of a small tree from ten to fifteen feet high. It is not particularly beautiful, being rather shrubby in its appearance. It is an evergreen, bearing leaves, flowers, and fruit all the year round. The flowers occur singly in the axils of the leaves. The calyx is persistent, that is, it does not drop off like the corolla, and may be found attached to the base of the fruit. The corolla consists of five spreading petals of a purplish-pink color.
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