3i8 THE CAT FAMILY 



The bob-cat is, however, often shot out of the trees, as 

 the cougar is. Cat hunting may be said to be a sort of 

 intermediate species of sport half-way between coon 

 hunting and cougar hunting. It approaches the latter, 

 however, more nearly than the former. 



A pack is often made up of terriers, hounds, and 

 even curs of low degree. The dogs easily follow the 

 trail, giving expression to their delight as the scent 

 grows warmer, and shouting "he's treed "in different, 

 louder notes when the cat has been compelled to go 

 aloft. Mr. A. C. Laut has beautifully described the 

 wild-cat in the tree. " Had the trapper Koot," he says, 

 "glanced up to the topmost spreading bough of a pine 

 just above the snare, he might have detected lying in 

 a dapple of sun and shade, something with large owl 

 eyes, something whose pencilled ear-tufts caught the 

 first crisp of the man's moccasins over the snow-crust. 

 Then the ear-tufts were laid flat back against a furry 

 form, hardly differing from the dapple of sun and 

 shade. The big owl eyes closed to a tiny blinking slit 

 that let out never a ray of tell-tale light. The big 

 round body, mottled gray and white like the snowy 

 tree, widened, stretched, flattened, till it was almost a 

 part of the tossing pine bough. Only when the man 

 and dog below the tree had passed far beyond did the 

 pencilled ears blink forward and the owl eyes open, 

 and the big body bunch out like a cat with elevated 

 haunches ready to spring." 



The cat when treed is easily shot, but many thor- 

 ough-going cat hunters prefer to dislodge him in order 

 not to disappoint the dogs, which are always eager for 

 a fight. A hunter sometimes climbs the tree and 



