* 196 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
This rather common cat is, in some degree, related to the lynxes, 
sufficiently distinct, yet resembling the latter in its tufted ears, short tail, 
long limbs, and some few peculiarities of the skull. 
Jerdon says of it: ‘‘ It frequents alike jungles and the open country, 
and is very partial to long grass and reeds, sugar-cane fields, corn fields, 
&c. It does much damage to game of all kinds—hares, partridges, &c., 
and quite recently I shot a pea fowl at the edge of a sugar-cane field 
when one of these cats sprang out, seized the pea fowl, and after a short 
struggle (for the bird was not dead) carried it off before my astonished 
eyes, and in spite of my running up, made good his escape with his 
booty. It must have been stalking these birds, so immediately did its 
spring follow my shot.” Blyth writes: “In India the chaus does not 
shun, but even affects populous neighbourhoods, and is a terrible 
depredator among the tame ducks and poultry, killing as many as it can 
get at, but I have not known him to attack geese, of which I long kept 
a flock out day and night, about a tank where ducks could not be left 
out at night on account of these animals. A pair of them bred 
underneath my house, and I frequently observed them, and have been 
surprised at the most extraordinary humming sound which they sometimes 
uttered of an evening. ‘Their other cries were distinguishable from 
those of the domestic cat.” This species will, however, interbreed with 
the domestic cat. According to Hodgson it breeds twice a year in the 
woods, producing three or four kittens at a birth. It is said to be 
untameable, but in 1859, at Sasseram, one of the men of my Levy caught 
a very young kitten, which was evidently of this species. I wrote at 
the time to a friend about a young mongoose which I had just got, and 
added, ‘‘ It is great fun to see my last acquisition and a little jungle cat 
(Felis chaus) playing together. They are just like two children in their 
manner, romping and rolling over each other, till one gets angry, when 
there is a quarrel and a fight, which, however, is soon made up, the 
kitten generally making the first advances towards a reconciliation, and 
then they go on as merrily as ever. The cat is a very playful, good 
tempered little thing; the colour is a reddish-yellow with darker red 
stripes like a tiger, and slightly spotted ; the ears and eyes are very 
large ; the orbits of the last bony and prominent. What is it? Chaus 
or Bengalensis?* I am not as yet learned in cats when very young. 
If it be areal jungle cat—which my shikaris declare it to be—it strangely 
belies the savage nature of its kind, as Thomson says :— 
‘The tiger darting fierce 
Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom’d 
The lively shining leopard speckled o’er 
With many a spot the beauty of the waste 
And scorning all the taming arts of man.’ 
* Both reputed to be untameable. 
