6 WILD CAT. 



Chalcraft, once had the extraordinary luck to trap a WILD 

 CAT, the rarest of British quadrupeds: not an old Tom 

 turned poacher, as some of my readers will at once con- 

 clude, hut a true, genuine, wild cat. And here let me say 

 that there is not more difference between a Newfoundland 

 dog and a cur fox, between a red deer and a roebuck, 

 between a barn-door hen and a hen pheasant, than 

 between the ferocious tiger of our woods and the purring 

 mouser of our hearths. Chalcraft brought his prize in 

 triumph to Hatch, so long the residence of Mr. Waring 

 Kidd: but poor Waring was c hors de combat/ regu- 

 larly on the sick list, he was often ailing, and he had not 

 nerve enough to undertake the embalming and preserva- 

 tion of so vast a beast. Chalcraft was sadly disappointed, 

 but solaced himself by making a fur cap of the skin, which 

 he wears on great occasions to this day. Out-lying tabbies 

 are not uncommon, and destroy lots of young pheasants, 

 but this is the only instance within my knowledge of the 

 capture of a real wild cat. 



From time immemorial BLACK GROUS have inhabited 

 Hindhead. This noble bird usually prefers wet swampy 

 places : I have known a pointer, when up to his knees in 

 water, stand at a ' black cock : ' but occasionally, especially 

 towards August, the black grous get upon the brows of 

 the hills, and then is the time when they are principally 

 sought after by sportsmen. It has always been a riddle to 

 me that Gilbert White should speak of the black cock as 

 extinct. I can truly say with him, " When I was a little 

 boy, a black cock used to come now and then to my fa- 

 ther's table." But this is not all ; the sportsmen here kill 

 them every year. I believe Mr. Wheeler and some of the 

 Paynes go out regularly on the 12th of August, and always 



