PUMA AT LARGE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19218, 8 July 1924, Page 4

PUMA AT LARGE.

- —e—— EXCITING HUNT IN BUSH. SCOURING A COUNTRYSIDE. CIRCUS ESCAPEE SHOT. (From On® Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, Juno 25. The small township of St. Arnaud, in the north-west, of Victoria, was thrown into a state of intense excitement one morning a few days ago by the clanging of tho ifireboU giving the alarm that a particularly vicious puma had escaped from a circus van while travelling by rail near the town. Mounted on horseback and armed, all the men in the town turned out to hunt the animal down in the dense bush near the township, and all mothers kept their children at home, the school bring closed for (lie day. It appeared that as I’erry Bros.’ circus was being conveyed by train the previous night to Dunolly, a nearby town, the keepers opened of tho cages in order to attend to the puma and jaguar. With lightning swiftness, almost as though they had been awaiting their opportunity, both animals sprang out into the darkness, one of the men narrowly escaping bang thrown from tho moving- train. Both animals landed on to the embankment, apparently without injury, and in the moonlight they could be soon juicing excitedly about. The train was stopped almost immediately, and attendants with huge rope nets quickly dismounted and fearlessly approached tho snarling beasts. The jaguar e.rouchcd and showed its teeth, as though ready to spring upon tho men, but the puma turned and raced through the Jong undergrowth towards tho bush, and was Boon lost to view. The men had not much difficulty in recapturing tho jaguar, but the task of beating about, in tho bush proved hopeless, and nothing could lie done until the morning. The animal had a sinister reputation for ferocity, and, it was deemed necessary to leave some men armed and on the lookout all night lor tho purpose of either capturing ■or, killing tho puma, should it appear, and of warning any passers-by in the early morning, particularly children coming in from the outlying Lomeeteads to the school. Soon after dawn the whole township know of the escape, the fircbell being kept ringing for nearly an hour, bo that, everybody hurried along to find out what was the matter. The wildest rumours were soon in circulation. Some had it that several children had been mauled to death; others that the beast had killed tho keeper before, leaping out into the night; others more imaginative still had it that two men nad been killed and partially oaten, and that two lions and a lioness had got into the wild and dense hushlacd from which there was little hope of dislodging them, and would most likely end in lions being as plentiful as foxes had become. All (ho morning men with guns were galloping to and from (be township, and almost all activities were suspended in the excitement of the hour, the front of the store and the public-house ocmg the assembly place of loquacious groups. The search parties worked groups on an encircling principle, carefully searching the country over a radius beyond which it wae practically certain the puma would not have strayed, and converging to ah agreed centre. After several hours’ work in difficult two of the patties met arid proceeded through long grass and heavy timber towards Carapooee West, and while thus engaged one of the party on the extreme wing pf a long line came suddenly upon a crouching reddish brown animal, with its cat-like eyes fixed steadily upon him. It was only 20 yards or &o ahead of him, and was peering out of long grass. Realising that he had found tho quarry, but, being himself unarmed, that ho was powerless, he hurried off silently, so as not to unduly excite the animal, towards the next man in (lie line— Mr Bray, a well-known marksman, who shoots under the name of Starno. Mr Bray hurried to tho spot with Mr Robinson, and there the puma, was, not having stirred, and looking piercingly about it, evidently anticipating , danger. Mr Bray fired at once, wounding the puma in the ' near shoulder. "With a ferocious howl of agony and rage the supple creature shrank back into the grass, and crouched snarling and ready to spring. Giving it no time for attack, Air Bray fired again, striking it in the left side. A fox terrier which was following Mr Bruy then bounded forward, and caught the puma by the (ail. Mortally wounded, tho puma could only turn painfully upon the dog, whereupon Mr Bray lodged another shot, which took effect in its head, and it rolled over dead. The parly soon gathered together, and triumphantly rode back to St. Arnaud with the prize slung acrors one of the horses. There woe a great ovation from the assembled people, and the dead puma continued to bo an object of the greatest interest to men, women, and children until night closed one of the most exciting days in tho history of the little township.