THE WILD CAT OF BRITAIN. 155 



Mr. Wilson, the manager of the show, though an 

 excellent naturalist, tried to get it out of the thick-barred, 

 heavy-made travelling box in which k arrived, into one of 

 the ordinary wire show-cages, thinking it would appear to 

 better advantage ; but in this endeavour he was unsuccessful, 

 the animal resisting all attempts to expel it from the one 

 into the other, making such frantic and deterriiined opposition 

 that the idea was abandoned. This was most fortunate, for 

 the wire cages then in use were afterwards found unequal to 

 confining even the ordinary domestic cat, which, in more 

 than one instance, forced the bars apart sufficiently to allow 

 of escape. As it was, the wild cat maintained its position, 

 sullenly retiring to one corner of the box, where it scowled, 

 growled, and fought in a most fearful and courageous manner 

 during the time of its exhibition, never once relaxing its 

 savage watchfulness or attempts to injure even those who fed 

 it. I never saw anything more unremittingly ferocious, 

 nor apparently more untamable. 



It was a grand animal, however, and most interesting 

 to the naturaUst, being, even then, scarcely ever seen ; if so, 

 only in districts far away and remote from the dwellings of 

 civilisation. Yet I believe I saw one among the rocks of 

 Bodsbeck, in Dumfriesshire, many years ago, though of this 

 I am not certain, as it was too far away for accurate obser- 

 vation before it turned and stood at bay, and on my 

 advancing it disappeared. The animal shown at the Crystal 

 Palace was very much lighter in colour, and with less markings 

 than those in the British Museum, the tail shorter, and the 

 dark rings fewer, the lines on the body not much deeper in 

 tint than the ground colour, excepting on the forehead and 

 the inside of the fore-legs, which were darker, rather a light 

 red round the mouth, and almost white on the chest — which 

 appears to be usual with the wild cat ; the eyes were yellow- 

 tinted green, the tips of the ears, the lips, cushions of the 

 feet, and a portion of the back part of the hind-legs, black > 

 the markings were, in short, irregular thin lines, and in 

 no way resembled those of the ordinary black-marked 

 domestic tabby cat, possessing little elegance of line — 



