THE CARACAL LYNX 35 



name of Felis caracal (Nov. Comm. Acad. Petrop. 

 I776). 1 It has long been used in the East to chase 

 game; the Arabs and Persians employ it to hunt 

 antelope, peafowl, and demoiselle crane during 

 the cold weather, the animal being kept hooded 

 like a cheetah and then turned after its quarry 

 in the wheat and millet fields. The speed and 

 strength of the caracal is much greater than 

 would be expected. In Vigne's day (1842) many 

 of the Indian princes regularly kept caracal for 

 coursing. "The speed of the caracal, or Indian 

 lynx," observes Vigne, "is, if possible, quicker in 

 proportion than that of the chita." The same 

 traveller saw a caracal slipped at a grey fox, which 

 it ran into as a dog would into a rat. As regards 

 the strength of this lynx, Dr. Charleton relates that 

 he saw one fall on a hound, which it killed and tore 

 to pieces, though the dog defended itself to the 

 utmost. 



Many years ago Commandant Loche received a 

 caracal from M. Rose, officer of the Bureau Arabe at 

 Biskra, in the Sahara Desert. It was gentle, playful, 

 and fond of being stroked; it used to lie on the 

 furniture, and especially on the beds, like a domestic 

 cat; in cold weather it crept inside the bed! Another 

 individual was equally tame, but of uncertain temper. 



1. The Hunterian M.S. published by Owen contains an account of a 

 dissection of a "Shargoss ts (probably = siya gush or caracal); and the 

 Royal College of Surgeons' Museum contains a nearly complete caracal 

 skeleton, formerly labelled " Bones of a Shargoss " hence, probably, the 

 same individual as in the MS. 



