THE CAT TRIHK 



61 



and it is therefore easy to know where to set a trap for them. Having caught and killed one of 

 the colony, the rest of them are Mire to be taken it' the body oi their slain relative is left in the 

 same place mil far from their usual hunting-ground and surrounded with traps, as every wild cat 

 passing that way will to a certainty come to it." 



The wild cat ranges from the far north of Scotland, across Europe and Northern Asia, to 

 the northern slope- of the Himalaya. It has always been known as one of the fiercest and wild- 

 est of the eats, large or small. The continual ill-temper of these creatures is remarkable. In 

 the experience of the keepers of menageries there is no other so intractable savage. One pre- 

 sented to the Zoological Gardens by Lord Lilford some eight years ago still snarls and spits at 

 any one who comes near it, even the keeper. 



The food of the wild cat is grouse, mountain-hares, rabbits, small birds, and probably fish 

 caught in the shallow waters when chance offers. It 1- wholly nocturnal; consequently no one 

 ever sees it hunting for prey. Though it has long been confined to the north and northwest of 

 Scotland, ; t is by no means on the verge of extinction. The "deer-forests are saving it to some 

 extent, as they did the golden eagle. Grouse and hares are rather in the way when deer are 

 being stalked; consequently the wild cat and the eagle are not trapped or shot. The limits of 

 its present fastnesses were recently fixed by careful Scotch naturalists at the line of the Caledo- 

 nian Canal. Mr. Harvie Brown, in 1880, said that it only survived in Scotland north of a line 

 running from Oban to the junction of the three counties of Perth, Forfar, and Aberdeen, and 

 thence through Banffshire to Inverness. But the conclusion of a writer in the Edinburgh 

 K, rv'r-.v of July, 1898, in a very interesting article on the survival of British mammals, has been 

 happily contradicted. He believed that it only survived in the deer-forests of Inverness and 

 Sutherlandshire. The wild cats shown in the illustrations of these pages were caught a year 

 later as far south as Argyllshire. The father and two kittens were all secured, practically un- 

 hurt, ami purchased by Mr. Percy Leigh Pemberton for his collection of British mammals at 

 Ashford, in Kent. This gentleman has had great success in preserving his wild cats. They, as 

 well as others — marten-, polecats, and other small carnivora — are fed on fresh wild rabbits killed 

 in a warren near; consequently they are in splendid condition. The old "torn" wild cat, 

 snarling with characteristic ill-humour, was well supported by the wild and savage little kittens, 

 which exhibited all the family temper. Shortly before the capture of these wild cats another 



Bl ptrmitlien «f Ftr;i Ltigh Pembtrttn^ Esa 



EUROPEAN WILD CAT 



The British representative of this species is rapidly becoming extinct. The ">ec'tmen <w hose portrait is given here ivas caught in Argyllshire 



