THE CARACAL LYNX 



"I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 

 Straining upon the start." 



King Henry V. Act III. Sc. I. 



Probably every nation under the sun has at one 

 time or another adopted the device of employing one 

 animal to hunt another. The Nineveh sculptures 

 represent trained dogs, fierce and eager for the chase ; 

 a tame hunting-leopard, as elsewhere mentioned, 

 appears on the monuments of Beni Hassan. In 

 India, otters have been taught to fish for their 

 masters ; the Chinese employ cormorants for the 

 same purpose ; saker and lanner hawks are still 

 flown at bustard and gazelle by the Saharan Arabs. 

 Even to-day, in England, enthusiasts go lark-hunting 

 with merlin, while the occupation of taking rats and 

 rabbits with ferrets is a humbler phase of the same 

 sport. One of the most interesting of these deputy 

 hunters employed in India for coursing lesser 

 game is the handsome and widely distributed 

 caracal lynx. 



The caracal {Felis caracal} karakal ( = black- 

 eared) of the Turks siya gush of the Persians 

 roi kat of the Boers is found in India, Mesopotamia, 

 and Persia, and ranges all over Africa, from the 

 Cape to Cairo. From its peculiar zoological position, 

 it is a very interesting animal ; for as the Madagascar 

 fossa is half cat half civet, so is the caracal half 

 way between the true cats and the true lynxes. It 

 measures about eighteen inches at the shoulder, and 



