THE WILD CAT. l 7 I 



tint as they descend the flanks, until they are finally lost in the 

 nearly white area of the under-parts. Usually the tail is ringed 

 with nine black bands upon a grey ground, the first five of 

 these bands being the narrower, and not meeting inferiorly, 

 while the terminal black area is the largest of all, being often 

 as much as two inches in length ; it is at the same time the 

 deepest in tint. Barred externally with horizontal bands of 

 black, the limbs have their inner surface yellowish-grey, like 

 the upper surfaces of the feet, while the soles of the latter are 

 black. The claws are yellowish-grey. 



Distribution. — Ranging over a considerable portion of Con- 

 tinental Europe, namely, France, Germany, Poland, Switzer- 

 land, Hungary, Southern Russia, Spain, Dalmatia, Greece, 

 and part of Turkey, and thence extending eastwards into the 

 forest regions of Northern Asia, the Wild Cat was formerly 

 widely distributed in Britain, although it appears never to have 

 been a native of Ireland. At the present day it is restricted 

 only to the northern districts of our islands, and is there be- 

 coming year by year more rare. This sole British representa- 

 tive of the feline family is proved, both by tradition and by the 

 discovery of its fossilised remains in cavern and superficial de- 

 posits, to have originally ranged over the whole of such parts 

 of England as were suited to its habits. Such remains have 

 been discovered in the Pleistocene brick-earths of Grays, in 

 Essex, in company with the remains of Mammoths, Hippo- 

 potami, Rhinoceroses, and other Mammals now either totally 

 extinct, or long since banished from Britain to warmer climates. 

 They also occur, in association with similar creatures, in the 

 caves of Bleadon (in the Mendips), Cresswell Crags (Derby- 

 shire), Kent's Hole (near Torquay), RavensclirT (Glamorgan- 

 shire), Uphill (in the Mendips), and the Vale of Clywd, while 

 quite recently they have been discovered in a fissure in the 

 Wealden rocks near Ightham, in Kent. 



Habits. — Like the rest of its family, truculent and savage in 



