^ The Wild Cat 



in the wooded ravines below, I had many opportunities of 

 watching her springing nimbly over the dense undergrowth, 

 as she made her escape, but I could never get a shot 

 at her. I had traps set for her, but without the desired 

 effect, for it was only spotted hycenas that were caught 

 niorhtlv. One mornino-, however, my taxidermist came 

 to me with the joyful news : " A black serval has been 

 caught." And with these words he held out before me 

 a wonderful black female cat, on whose coat marks still 

 blacker in shade were clearly perceptible. This, it would 

 seem, is characteristic of these black servals, as it is of 

 the blackish genet already referred to. 1 have noticed 

 something of the same kind with dapple-grey horses. Next 

 morning I caught another serval, a male, normally coloured 

 — evidently the mate of the black female — in the same 

 snare. 



The catching of this serval was a very satisfactory 

 outcome of long days of watching and waiting. Hour 

 after hour I had sat scanning the great lonely mountain 

 through my field-glasses, on the look-out for signs of 

 animal life, with no break in the monotonous silence but 

 the mournful cry of the great grey shrike, or the flutter- 

 ing by of mating pigeons {Coluniba arquatrix), or the 

 momentary appearance of a black lynx, or, more rarely, 

 of the grey wild cat {Fc/is libyca), a long-tailed and very 

 timid species, more usually found on the plains. I got 

 hold of four specimens of this animal. It is singularly 

 like our domestic cat, both in appearance and manner of 

 life. The caracal {Caracal iiubicus). an East African 

 species of lynx, I also came upon. 



4^5 



