Canada Lynx 



tips of ears with tufts of long, black hairs. Under parts white, tail 

 tipped with black, face-ruff long, white bordered with black. (Il- 

 lustration facing p. 292.) 



Range. Boreal North America, south formerly to the mountains of 

 Pennsylvania. Replaced in Newfoundland by the allied Newfound- 

 land Lynx, L. subsolanus Bangs, darker and more richly coloured; 

 and in Alaska by a paler form, L. canadensis mollipilosus Stone. 



The Canada lynx is the real lynx of all the north, that 

 mysterious creature which the ancients believed possessed the 

 power of seeing through all substances, whether opaque or not 

 to other eyes. 



The distinction between this species and the lynx of North- 

 ern Asia and Europe appears to be no more than may with 

 safety be ascribed to local environment. Those branches of the 

 family which have strayed southward into the forests of a more 

 temperate climate have invariably decreased in size, showing 

 that the true home of their race is in the north. 



The Canada lynx is a savage, flat-faced beast, with enor- 

 mous muscular legs and paws out of all proportion to the 

 size of its lean body and absurd retrousse tail. Its soft 

 fur of clouded gray is so blended with various shades of pale 

 buff and tawny as to be extremely difficult to distinguish in 

 any light or against almost any background ; even in the cruel 

 publicity of a barred cage it is still indistinct, and one might 

 well fancy the cage empty at a little distance. 



In the northern woods the lynx travels with silent leaps, his 

 broad paws supporting him on the snow, or alighting without 

 a sound among brittle twigs or dry leaves of a past summer, 

 enabling him to pounce on grouse or hare before they have 

 time to take alarm. He can also climb trees with ease, to rob 

 the nests of birds and squirrels, or stretch himself along a lower 

 branch from which he can launch himself on whatever may 

 pass beneath. Yet since every creature that he hunts is equally 

 well fitted for the contest, and even more earnest and watchful 

 in its endeavours to avoid him and so enjoy its own wild life 

 in the woods a little longer, the lynx must necessarily go 

 without food often for days together in the winter, glad enough 

 perhaps to pull some frozen scrap of flesh or skin out of the 

 snow, dropped there by more fortunate hunters weeks before. 

 The lack of insect scavengers is not felt in the woods in win- 



