Wild Cat 



and remains perfectly motionless, watching and listeni-ng, intent 

 to learn whether it is an enemy to be avoided or possibly 

 game for his dinner. In the latter case he creeps forward with 

 the utmost caution, planning, if possible, to head off his victim 

 in order to seize it at the first alarm. When out hunting, the 

 bob cat utters a wild scream from time to time; its object 

 evidently is to startle any creature that may be in hiding near 

 by into betraying its presence by a startled jump. 



And certainly any animal would require strong nerves to 

 remain unmoved when this jarring yell bursts through the still- 

 ness close at hand. It has been described as a low sort of 

 growling, followed by a sudden quick repeated caterwaul, or 

 yang-yang-yang. I have frequently heard just such a cry in the 

 woods at night, but have to confess that I have never been 

 able to trace it to the creature that made it. 



Following up these various voices of the night is baffling 

 work at all times, and there is still much confusion of ideas re- 

 garding them and much yet to be learned. 



I have more than once heard a red fox utter a scream that 

 would do credit to a cougar, and the farmers here in New Hamp- 

 shire tell me that the skunk has a most blood-curdling yell of 

 its own. How much truth there is in this I am unable to say, 

 but the belief is too widely held in these parts to be wholly 

 overlooked. 



Wild cats roam about in the twilight of early morning and 

 evening more than at midday. They sleep in hollow trees and 

 caverns among the rocks and ledges, and in some such place 

 in a warm nest of leaves they hide their kittens. In warm 

 weather they like to doze in the sun, either stretched along a 

 horizontal bough or curled up in a little patch of sunlight in 

 the midst of a berry-patch. They wander about all winter in 

 the snow and cold, living as best they may, stalking hares 

 and grouse among the evergreen, or watching patiently beside 

 a squirrel-hole in a tree-top, just as a domestic cat will stand 

 guard at a mouse-hole in the barn. 



They resemble the domestic cat in a number of ways, being 

 great mousers and destroyers of small birds and their nests, and 

 equally fond of catnip, rolling over and over in the strong- 

 scented herbs and rubbing it into their fur and eating the blos- 

 soms and leaves. 



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