52 TJie- British Naturalisf, 



treat them how you will, are ill-tempered and untamably 

 ferocious. One, again, is an expert and assiduous mouser, 

 destroying not only the murine and feathered race, but insects, 

 reptiles (e. g. snakes), bats, hedgehogs, and even the more 

 formidable and hard-bitten weasel.* Another is sluggish and 

 inactive, almost destitute of tlje usual predatious propensity, 

 and altogether useless in its own profession. Strange as it 

 may at first appear, it is a most difficult task in some cases to 

 trace with accuracy our domesticated animals to their true 

 and undoubted origin. In the present instance we confess we 

 hesitate to give a decided opinion, and should be glad of a lit- 

 tle further information. The wood-cat is here represented as 



" rather a dangerous animal to catch in a trap, as it is very tenacious of 

 life; and the moment it is loosened it springs and fastens" with great fury. 

 Por the same reason, it is dangerous to wound or even to irritate it ; and if 

 it cannot be killed outright, the safest way is to let it alone." (p. 47.) 



Is not the peril of encountering this tiger of the British forests 

 a little overcharged ? 



As we offer our remarks in the same order in which the 

 passages which suggest them occur, we must be excused if 

 we appear to jump rather abruptly from the consideration of 

 animals to that of plants, and back again from plants to ani- 

 mals. In ascending the " mountain," our naturalist, as might 

 be expected, meets with several species of Faccinium, of 

 which there are four indigenous to Britain ; viz. Faccinium 

 uliginosum, the great bilberry (by far the least common of the 

 whole) ; V. Myrtiilus, the common whortleberry or bilberry ; 

 V. Fitis IdaeX the red whortleberry or box-leaved bilberry ; 

 and V, Oxycoccos (or, according to more modern nomen- 

 clature, Oxycoccos palustris), the true cranberry. These 

 plants are each of them distinguished by such well-marked 

 characters, that there can, to a botanist at least, be no such 

 thing as mistaking one for another. At page ,57. not a little 

 confusion appears to be unnecessarily made, owing to the 

 names, either Latin or English, which are there applied to 

 one or more of the above species. " The beautiful myrtle- 



for mice or birds, which, when caught, she brought and laid at his feet, 

 sometimes to the number of six or eight, or more, in a day. She would 

 accompany him when he went a-field, through wet grass, to fetch up the 

 cows to the yard ; and has been known to follow him from her proper 

 residence (in spite of repeated efforts to drive her back) to his own house, 

 a distance of near two miles, and, remaining there the night, return with 

 him in the morning as he came back again to his work. 



* All the above-named animals we have known to have been destroyed 

 by a favourite cat of our own. 



