34 CARNIVORA 



ORDER CAKNIVORA. 



WILD CAT. 

 FELIS CATUS L. 



THOUGH doubtless once a denizen of all our glens and deans, 

 wherever the banks were sufficiently rocky and clothed with 

 woods and thickets to afford the necessary shelter, this fine 

 animal is now quite extinct throughout the whole of the 

 district, and for many miles beyond it. Its extermination 

 throughout Fife and the Lothians, with the exception of the 

 eastern corner of Haddingtonshire, must have taken place a 

 long time ago, but how long it is impossible to say, as no 

 facts bearing on the point appear to have been placed on 

 record. In some of the many suitable localities that readily 

 suggest themselves for instance, on the banks of the Esk, to 

 go no farther afield it is just possible that a few may have 

 lingered till the opening years of the present century, but 

 this is a mere conjecture on my part. In the cleuchs and 

 deans of the Lammermoors, the adjoining coast of Berwick- 

 shire, and in the Border counties generally, it seems to have 

 maintained its footing longer, and certainly existed in a few 

 spots well into this century. The same may be said of the 

 hills of Stirlingshire ; and among the wilds of south-western 

 Perthshire it did not finally disappear till some twenty-five 

 or thirty years ago. In 1849 and 1874, Dr James Hardy, of 

 Oldcambus, published, in the " Proceedings " of the Berwick- 

 shire Naturalists' Club (vol. ii., p. 357, and vii., p. 246), some 

 valuable observations on the former occurrence of the Wild 



