no REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Genns Lynx Kerr. 

 Lynxes. 



Lynx ruff us (Guldenstaedt). 



Wild Cat, Bob Cat. 



Plate 58. 



Length, 38 inches. Leg's rather long-, ears tufted, tail very 

 short (not over six inches). Color yellowish brown, tinged with 

 rufous (much redder in summer), spotted with dark brown or 

 black, narrow black lines on the head and a stripe down the back, 

 chin and throat wdiite, below, white spotted with black. 



Once abundant but now on the verge of extinction in New 

 Jersey. At the time of publication of Mr. Rhoads' work on the 

 Mammals of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 1903, it was re- 

 ported extinct except in the most northern counties where some 

 were thought to linger, while three recent records of wild-cats 

 killed in Mercer county are given in 1885, 1891 and 1892. 



Wild-cats are vicious animals, not hesitating to attack man 

 when cornered, and preying on all the birds and mammals of the 

 forest, as well as poultry, and young sheep and pigs. 



Their dens are located in hollow trees or in rocky ledges. 



Lynx rufus Abbott, Cook's Geol. of N. J., 1868, p. 753. — 

 Abbott, A Naturalist's Rambles, 1885, p. 447. 



Lynciis rufus Beelsey, Geol. Cape May Co., 1857, p. 137. 



Lynx ruffu^s Rhoads, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1897, p. 32. 

 — Rhoads, Mam. of Pa. and N. J., 1903, p. 141. 



