Canada Lynx 691 



pierced in two places, apparently by the claws of its adversary. 

 It was a prime Cross-fox, and brought five dollars. 



Similarly, Linklater tells me that once when carrying 

 the mails down from Montreal River, Ont., in January, 

 1880, he had halted for noon at the edge of a small lake and 

 saw on the ice, a mile or more away, two animals fighting, one 

 either a Fox or a Fisher, the other a Lynx. 



After eating his dinner and resting an hour, he travelled 

 on to the place and found the combatants to be a Cross-fox 

 and a Lynx. They had had a long and desperate encounter, 

 but the Fox, as usual, had succumbed to his foe's superior 

 powers, and had been torn into pieces. The head and tail 

 were lying on the ice, but the body had been carried off and 

 buried under snow in the distant woods, where the traveller 

 found it. The tracks showed that the Lynx had attacked the 

 Fox in the woods and chased it round and round on the Rabbit 

 trails for perhaps an hour before driving it onto the ice, where 

 the killing took place. There were plenty of Rabbits, so 

 that hunger was not the excuse. The Fox was at a disad- 

 vantage, as the snow was three feet deep and very soft. The 

 Lynx went over the surface on his snow-shoes, the Fox ploughed 

 in deep, and the harder he leaped the deeper he sank. 



Both these trappers say they have often heard of Foxes 

 killed by Lynxes and by Fishers. 



As soon as these two are trapped out. Foxes increase, 

 but are everywhere scarce in the thick woods. 



J. K. McDonald writes me: "I have known of bodies of 

 even full-grown Foxes being found dead, but uneaten, such 

 having been killed by the Lynx." 



The latter, however, is not always master of the situation, 

 as proven by the following incident in Nelson's "Alaska":" 



"Mr. McQuesten, a fur-trader living at Fort Yukon, wit- 

 nessed one winter day a combat between a Lynx and a Red- 

 fox, which he described to me as follows: 'The Lynx 

 sprang upon the Fox, in comparatively open ground, evidently 

 trying to capture it for food. The Fox instantly made fight, 



" Nat. Hist. Alaska, 1887, p. 235. 



