302 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



jungle cat, whose habitat is just such marshy ground 

 as this trophy was shot in, but the Prince said that our 

 pussy was nothing but the ordinary European wild-cat, 

 oddly marked. If so, it was more like the chaus than 

 the chaus itself, and as this animal ranges through 

 Persia and Asia Minor I don't at all see why, by some 

 legerdemain of the wild, our beast could not be a 

 jungle cat, or at least the hybrid offspring of one. 

 We never solved the mystery, as we could so easily 

 have done by taking the skin home. One of the men 

 annexed it from the drying-board, for the beauty of 

 the fur, probably, and then, aided by the rest of the 

 men, put the theft on to some mysterious mammal, 

 four-footed, of course, who had called in the night. 



We saw the spoor of many lynxes, but never got a 

 glimpse of one. I often heard an energetic cater- 

 wauler serenading his ladye o' nights. He lived high 

 up on an unclimbable bluff, and — wise beast — never 

 showed himself. 



Out after mallard one day about this time I shot a 

 whimbrel. The stealthy circling glide of a harrier 

 flying low, and the hurried "Scape! Scape!" of the 

 snipe drew my attention to an oozy reed bed near the 

 river. If I hadn't bagged my bird the harrier would. 

 It was like a diminutive curlew in plumage, shape, 

 bill, everything. 



As I stooped to pick up my prize I found a brilliant 

 fresh-water crab, just like an East African river crab. 

 I took him by his tiny rear pincers and admired him — 

 a beautiful thing. His oval body was furred and 

 exquisitely shaded, his legs were flexible and opaque. I 



