THE WILD CAT. te 
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. 
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), Ravenscliff (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 
Distribution. 
