atter. A year or so
ago, I wrote to a sporting magazine (now defunct) giving my views on
this horrible screech of the panther.

I have camped in the wilds of California, Oregon, Idaho and
Washington. Sixty years ago, in my childhood days, it was an everyday
occurrence to hear some one tell of having a panther follow them
through a certain piece of woods, and tell of the horrible screams
that the panther gave while following them. And still to this day,
there is, occasionally a person who reports of hearing that terrible
screech of the panther here in old Potter, notwithstanding that there
has not been a panther killed in the county for upwards of fifty
years, though twice within fifty years, I have been frightened nearly
out of my boots by that terrible screech.

On one occasion I was watching a salt lick for deer; I was on a
scaffold built up in a tree thirty or forty feet from the ground. The
lick was in a dense hemlock forest. It was well along into the
night--I was listening with all my energy, expecting to hear the tread of a
deer, but, so far I had heard nothing but the rustle of the porcupine
and the hop of the deer-mouse and the jump of the rabbit on the dry
leaves. Still, I was listening intently for that tread of a deer
which sounds different from that of any other animal, when, with the
suddenness of a flash of lightning that terrible screech of the
panther came within six feet of my head.

Was I frightened? I guess yes. And had not my gun been tied to a limb
of the tree to keep it in place it would have gone tumbling down the
tree to the ground.

Glancing up in the direction from whence that terrible scream came, I
could plainly see the outline of a screech owl.

On another occasion I had started about midnight from home to go to
my hunting camp. About five miles of the distance was along a road
with heavy timber on each side. The night was warm for the time of
the year, with a slight mist of rain. I was hustling along the best I
could to reach camp by the time it was daylight. I had my rifle and a
pack-sack with a grub stake to last for a week, on my back. When
again, with great suddenness that terrible screech of the panther
sounded in the trees over my head. The screech was so sudden and so
sharp that I came near dropping right through to China. After
recovering my breath and gazing into the timber for a moment, I again
discovered one of those frightful owls.

Every close observer, who has put in