ARE WILD CATS SCARCE? 201 



" Tom " to a great authority on sport, who had 

 asked him for the first he got. What his corre- 

 spondent wanted was the body of the first " Tom " 

 captured for setting-up purposes, and great was 

 the embarrassment caused at a certain town office 

 when an animal with the temper of a tiger arrived 

 in a box which nobody dared to open. 



On the adjoining forest, almost identical in 

 character, some further light was thrown on the 

 subject, though the story told was different. I 

 asked the keeper if he often got wild cats, and 

 the reply was that they very rarely saw them. 

 " That," I said, " is rather strange, for I have 



just been told that at L they got no fewer than 



eleven last year." "It is not so strange as you 

 would think," the keeper explained. " Down at 



L , where they always grow some oats and 



turnips, they trap a great many rabbits, and all 

 those wild cats are taken in the rabMt -traps. 

 They don't try particularly to get cats, but the 

 cats come after the rabbits and get into the traps 

 set for them. Then they are killed, partly because 

 it's an old habit .with gamekeepers to kill them, 

 and partly because it's a most ticklish job to take 

 a wild cat out of a trap alive. Here we shoot a 

 good many rabbits, but never trap them, and that's 

 the reason why we never get any cats. But though 

 we never see cats here, I have no doubt they are 

 as numerous here as at the other end of the loch. 

 In the winter-time we often see their tracks in the 

 snow, and could get them if we had any object, 

 but in a deer forest they do no sort of harm what- 

 ever. We do not count their work among the 



