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December, Friday, 1st.—Again we hear strange rumors of the panther. The creature is now reported to have been in Oakdale, having crossed the valley from the Black Hills. We hear that a man went out of a farm-house, about dusk, to pick up chips from a pile of freshly-cut wood at no great distance, and while there, he saw among the wood a wild animal, the like of which he had never seen before, and which he believed to be a catamount; its eyes glared upon him, and it showed its teeth, with a hissing kind of noise. This man gave the alarm, and for several nights the animal was heard in that neighborhood; it was tracked to a swamp, where a party of men followed it, but although they heard its cries, and saw its tracks, the ground was so marshy, that they did not succeed in coming up with it. Such is the story from Oakdale. Strange as the tale seems, there is nothing absolutely incredible in it, for wild animals will occasionally stray to a great distance from their usual haunts. About fifteen years since, a bear was killed on the Mohawk, some thirty miles from us. And so late as five-and-forty years ago, there was an alarm about a panther in West Chester, only twenty or thirty miles from New York!

Numbers of these animals are still found in the State, particularly in the northern mountainous counties. They are also