Audubon encountered the cougar in this drawing at Castroville, east of San Antonio, on January 28, 1846. Bachman decries the early colonists who named every animal after those of the old world and says of the cougar, called panther by the early colonists, "the cougar is but little more like a true panther than an opossum is like a kangaroo."

Audubon studied cougar habits in Texas and concluded that they were really very cowardly animals. He observed their paw prints around cattle crossings on the sluggish bayous of Texas, noting that they gathered to wait for a calf or cow that might get stuck and the mud and drown.

Because they normally ate small animals and birds, Audubon placed the Cougar with a black heifer he had attacked, noting that this was extremely unusual.