12 THE NATURALIST IN NORWAY. 



It is so partial to the flesh of the hare that the best 

 bait for a lynx-trap is the dead body of poor puss. 



The colour of the Norwegian lynx is generally of a 

 light gray marked with dark spots. Some specimens 

 are of a dark rufous-brown, spotted here and there 

 with a darker shade. The light gray skins are the 

 most valuable, especially when the dark spots are well 

 denned. The young of the Norwegian lynx, when a 

 few months old, are much like the domestic cat in 

 appearance, except that they are thicker in frame and 

 stronger-looking. They have also a fierce and cruel 

 countenance. Their colour varies, and is sometimes 

 grayish-brown, and occasionally rufous-brown. 



In the middle of the last century, according to the 

 statement of Pontoppidan, the skin of a lynx in Nor- 

 way would sell for as much as twelve sp. dollars. It 

 is now not worth more than from two to three sp. dol- 

 lars. The Russians buy up all the Norwegian lynx- 

 skins, and sell them again, at an enormous profit, to 

 the Chinese. With the exception of the Swedish and 

 Eussian, the Norwegian lynx is larger in size than that 

 of any other country. 



Pliny speaks of a lynx which he saw at Rome in the 

 time of Pompey, but the animal came from Gaul. It 

 is not to be met with in France at the present time. 

 Among the ancients the lynx was consecrated to 

 Bacchus, for we find that the ancient poets and painters 

 represented the god of wine as drawn in a chariot by 

 tigers, panthers, and lynxes. 



Pontoppidan gives an amusing account of an en- 

 counter between a lynx and a goat. It appears that 

 the lynx burrows in the ground, where it conceals it- 

 self by day, so a cunning old ram (gede-buk] having 



