WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



shore to be caught in the nets. In the clear frosty air of a 

 September night the pecuHar moaning cry of the wild cats 

 as they answered to each other along the opposite shore,* 

 and the hootings of the owls in the pine-wood, sounded 

 like the voices of unearthly beings, and I do not think that 

 any one of my crew would have passed an hour alone by 

 that loch side for all the fish in it. Indeed, the hill side 

 which sloped down to the lake had the name of being 

 haunted, and the waters of the lake itself had their ghostly 

 inhabitant in the shape of what the Highlanders called the 

 water-bull. There was also a story of some strange mer- 

 maid-like monster being sometimes seen, having the ap- 

 pearance of a monstrous fish with long hair. It was a scene 

 worthy of a painter, as the men with eager gestures scram- 



* The true wild cat {Felis ca/iis) ceased to exist in the greater part of Scotland before 

 the middle of the nineteenth century. After that date, records of the occurrence of this 

 truly savage creature south of the Highland line will scarcely bear investigation, even 

 where that can be satisfactorily applied, because when the domestic cat goes wild it often 

 grows to a great size and acquires some of the characteristic external features of the feral 

 species. The specific difference, however, may be detected in the bonesof the head. In 

 the north of Scotland the wild cat still holds its own in some of the deer forests. The last 

 authentic instance of its appearance in Perthshire was in the winter of 1S70-71, when 

 one was killed at Craig Vinian, near Dunkeld, now preserved in the Perth Museum. In 

 Mr Eowlby's forest of Knoydart, Inverness-shire, they were not uncommon when I knew 

 it fifteen years ago. At that time the presence of wild cats was not discouraged in Knoy- 

 dart forest; but occasionally they were taken in traps set in the river for otters. The 

 head stalker obtained two fine specimens for me during the winter of 1898-9, which I 

 sent to the Natural History department of the British Museum. In the same winter a 

 large male was taken at Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire, measuring 3 feet 10 inches from the 

 tip of the nose to the end of its short bushy tail. It was from this animal that Mr Thor- 

 burn painted the fine picture which is reproduced in Mr Millais' Mammals of Great 

 Britain and Ireland {yo\. i. page 1 66). 



The late Duke of Sutherland was at pains to have the wild cats protected in his deer 

 forest; so was the late Earl of Seafield; and the Duke of Westminster, I believe, does 

 not allow them to be trapped in Reay Forest. There is, therefore, no immediate pro- 

 spect of the extermination of this interesting, but formidable, beast of prey in the north 

 of Scotland. — Ed. 



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