^^0 The Wild Cat. 



btates. This species also inhabits the mountains and undulating 

 or rolling country of the Southern States, and frequents the thickets 

 that generally spring up on deserted cotton plantations, some 

 of which are two or three miles long, and perhaps a mile wide, 

 and aflord, from the quantity of briars, shrubs and young trees of 

 various kinds which have overgrown them, excellent cover for 

 many quadrupeds and birds. In these bramble covered old fields 

 the " Cats " feed chiefly on the rabbits and rats that make their 

 homes in their almost impenetrable and tangled recesses ; and 

 seldom does the Wild Cat voluntarily leave so comfortable and 

 secure a lurking place, except in the breeding season, or to follow 

 m very sultry weather the dry beds of streams or brooks, to pick 

 up the catfish, &c., or crawfish and frogs that remain in the deep 

 holes of the creeks during the drought of summer. 



' The Wild Cat not only makes great havoc among the chickens, 

 turkeys and ducks of the planters, but destroys many of the 

 smaller quadrupeds, as well as partridges and such other birds as 

 he can surprise roosting on the ground. The hunters often run 

 down the Wild Cat with packs of fox-hounds. When hard 

 pressed by fast dogs, and in an open country, he ascends a tree 

 with the agility of a squirrel, but the baying of the dogs calling 

 his pursuers to the spot, the unerring rifle brings him to the 

 ground, when, if not mortally wounded, he fights fiercely with 

 the pack until killed. He will, however, when pursued by hunters 

 with hounds, frequently elude both dogs and huntsmen, by an 

 exercise of instinct so closely bordering on reason that we are 

 bewildered in the attempt to separate it from the latter. No 

 sooner does he become aware that the enemy is on his track than 

 instead of taking a straight course for the deepest forest he 

 speeds to one of the largest old fields overgrown wiih briary 

 thickets in the neighbourhood, and having reached this tangled 

 maze, he runs in a variety of circles, crossing and recrossiug his 

 path many times ; and when he thinks the scent has been suflS- 

 ciently diftused in difierent directions by this manoeuvre to 

 puzzle both men and dogs, he creeps slyly forth, and makes for 

 the woods, or for some well known swamp ; and if he should be 

 lucky enough to find a half dried up pond, or a part of the swamp 

 on which the clayey bottom is moist and sticky, he seems to 

 know that the adhesive soil, covering his feet and legs, so far 

 destroys the scent that although the hounds may be in full cry 

 on reaching such a place, and while crossing it, they will lose the 



