3i6 THE CAT FAMILY 



series of skins at the British Museum, he can detect no 

 constant difference, and, moreover, the skulls closely 

 resemble each other." * Under the plan of this volume, 

 however, reference to such discussions belongs prop- 

 erly in the Appendix, which is designed to free the text 

 from all technical matter in order that there may be 

 more room for the description of the animal the sports- 

 man knows, its habits, the methods of pursuit, and for 

 the short stories illustrative of the chase. The reader 

 will find in the Appendix descriptions of the three wild- 

 cats the naturalist knows and mention of an assorted 

 lot of lesser cats, which are distributed over small 

 wooded areas chiefly in the Southwest and in Mexico. 



The bob-cat, like his larger cousin, the cougar, is a 

 predatory flesh-eater. He prowls about the forests 

 after birds, rabbits, squirrels and other small ani- 

 mals and is, in turn, chased by coyotes and wolves, 

 just as the domestic descendants of the latter chase 

 common house cats on sight. The long practice which 

 wolves have had in chasing and treeing wild-cats has, 

 no doubt, given rise to the passionate love for cat 

 chasing which is noticeable in all dogs, great and small, 

 and which is of the utmost advantage to the sports- 

 man who would hunt cougars or bob-cats. 



In shape and general appearance the wild-cat is very 

 much like a " great big" domestic cat, varying in color 

 from the grayer Northern species through the reddish 

 kind to the most Southern spotted variety, there being 

 all sorts of intermediate cats, showing shades of trans- 

 ition between the three principal kinds. 



Anyone who has observed the common house cat 



* The Standard Natural History. 



