174 



THE CAT TRIBE. 



master in an access of blind fury. Have our 

 forefathers had the patience to tame this 

 denizen of the woods? This is all the less 

 likely, since the wild cat is not easy to feed, 

 requiring as it does living prey, and never 

 surviving long in captivity. Moreover, the 



differences which mark it off from the 

 domestic cat are too important to have been 

 obliterated by an imperfect domestication 

 during a few centuries. 



Among the numerous felines which inhabit 

 Southern Asia, we may mention also the 



Fig. 79. The Viverrine Cat (Felis viverrina). 



Viverrine Ca* (Felis viverrina), fig. 79, in 

 which some see the type of a separate group, 

 distinguished by a long slender body, small 

 head, short legs, and tail of moderate length 

 terminating in a point. It is a beautiful 

 animal, reminding us by its gliding move- 

 ments of the civet cats, and has a soft fur, 

 the colour of which is a grayish -yellow 

 marked with brown spots arranged in longi- 

 tudinal stripes. In other respects it resembles 

 all the other felines, leading the same kind 

 of life, and not distinguishable by a single 

 important character. The fur is pretty 

 highly esteemed in some places. 



The Serval (Felis Serval), fig. 80, the 

 "boschkatt" of the Dutch colonists at the 

 Cape, forms the connecting link between the 

 felines and the lynxes. The lean, slender 



body attains the length of three feet or more, 

 while the short, and not very bushy tail 

 measures only about one foot. The legs are 

 pretty long, the head longish, the nose bent, 

 the ears large and shaped like pointed paper- 

 cornets. The serval is an inhabitant of the 

 plains of Africa, where the only wood con- 

 sists of a few bushes, and is met with from 

 the Cape to Algeria. It conceals itself by 

 day among the branches of the pistachios 

 and tamarisks, or in clefts and caves in the 

 rocks. Its strength enables it to attack 

 antelopes and sheep, but it prefers to make 

 war on the francolin and other birds of the 

 steppes. It is also very fond of paying 

 visits in its own interest to the poultry-yards 

 of the settlers, who on account of this unfor- 

 tunate passion regard the serval with detes- 



