1936] 



MAMMALS OF OREGON 



267 





waiting for the fatal results of the anesthetic and will cause no pain 

 to the cat. Care must be taken with any of these gases not to use 

 them near a fire or light as they are highly explosive. 



LYNX RUFUS UINTA MERRIAM 

 ROCKY MOUNTAIN BOBCAT; TOO-HOO-OO of the Piute at Burns 



Lynx uinta Merriam, Biol. Soc. Wash. Proc. 15 : 71, 1902. 



Type. Collected at Bridger's Pass (18 miles southwest of Rawlins), Wyo., 

 by Vernon Bailey, May 11, 1890. 



General characters. A large, long-legged, short-tailed cat with small feet, 

 erect, slightly tufted ears, conspicuous side whiskers or throat ruff, skull short, 

 wide, and high. Perhaps the largest of all the bobcats, skull large, heavily 

 crested, and with narrow rostrum, colors pale, considerably paler than pallescens. 

 In winter pelage, upper parts light tawny or rich buff, heavily frosted with 

 white-tipped outer hairs, obscurely mottled with brown or dusky spots, and often 

 striped along center of back with blackish; face striped and lined with black 

 and white ; back of ears black with large gray central spot ; lower parts white, 

 heavily spotted with black and buffy throat band; tail tawny above with 

 one wide subterminal crossbar of black and 2 or 3 narrow crossbars of brown 

 back of it ; tip and lower surface white. Summer pelage light tawny above 

 without gray frosting. Young at first finely spotted and striped with dusky or 

 blackish. 



Measurements. Of type, large adult male : Total length, 1,030 mm ; tail, 195 ; 

 foot, 200; ear (dry), 60; ear tuft, 25; whiskers, 60. Skull: Basal length, 114; 

 zygomatic breadth, 94. Weight of type 31^ pounds. An old male at Baker, 

 Oreg., after remaining 2 days in a trap, being shot and bleeding profusely, 

 weighed 27% pounds ; normally it probably weighed 30 pounds. 



Distribution and habitat. These large, light-colored bobcats fill 

 the Transition Zone area of the Rocky Mountain region west to the 

 east base of the Cascades and north into southern Alberta and south- 

 eastern British Columbia. 

 In Oregon they cover all 

 the sagebrush country 

 east of the Cascade Range 

 in both Transition and 

 Upper Sonoran Zones 

 (fig. 60). Their greatest 

 abundance is along the 

 numerous lava-rock cliffs 

 and canyons, the rimrock 

 country so generally dis- 

 tributed over eastern 

 Oregon. 



General habits. In the 

 open sagebrush country 

 where they abound these 

 big bobcats find safe and 

 comfortable homes in 

 caves and caverns of the broken lavas. From these strongholds the 

 cats at night prowl in the gray sagebrush, which they match so per- 

 fectly in color as to be almost invisible, even by daylight, and hunt 

 for such small game as mice, gophers, kangaroo rats, rabbits, and 

 grouse. Also along the shelves and walls of the cliffs and canyons 

 they catch wood rats and other small rodents or slip through the 

 tules and tall vegetation of the lake shores in search of game birds 

 and smaller prey. The whole surface of the country is covered and 



FIGURE 60. Range of three forms of bobcats in Ore- 

 a : 1, Lynx \ 

 Li. r. uinta. 



?on : 1, Lynx rufus fasciatus ; 2, L. r. pallesccns; 

 Type localities circled. 



