THE CAT FAMILY. 139 



lively rare. Minnesota appears to be the southern limit 

 of its eastern habitat, but it is sometimes found as far 

 south as the Adirondack Mountains; its range on the 

 western slope of the North American continent extending 

 from Alaska to California. The skins from Nova Scotia, 

 and the eastern part of the Hudson Bay country, closely 

 resemble those of the Norway Lynxes of Europe in the 

 character of the pelt and the beauty of the fur. The Cali- 

 fornia and northwestern varieties, while stronger in the 

 fur, are coarser and redder than the Nova Scotia skins. 

 The Alaska skins have a soft, rich, thick fur, but they are 

 very pale in color. The Sitka skins have a shrivelled ap- 

 pearance but the fur is soft and fine. All the Alaska 

 Lynxes are characterized by the thick hair that protects 

 their large foot pads from the snow. 



The American or Canadian Lynx is two feet high, and 

 from three to four feet long including the five inch tail. 

 As is the case with all of its kind, the hind legs are 

 much longer than the front legs, and the claws are quite 

 sharp and retractile and well concealed in the thick foot 

 pads. Its winter pelage consists of a coat of thick 

 soft fur, about one inch long on the back, which is inter- 

 mixed with longer silvery hairs; the under coat, which 

 in some rare instances is drab or blue or light yellow, gen- 

 erally being light reddish in color on the surface. The 

 ground color of the under fur is invariably a greyish blue; 

 and the fur on the belly is always finer and longer than 

 that on the back, generally showing light spots through 

 the three inch silky hairs. The fur is always thicker and 

 richer on the paler animals than on those of darker hue. 

 In summer the Lynx loses most of its beautiful fur 

 and its chief covering is a brownish red hair. The skin 

 of the Lynx is thin but as is the case with all of the Cat 

 family, it is thicker at the neck than on the other parts of 

 the body. 



The Lynx is a shy animal dwelling in the deep forests 

 and bush country where it preys on birds, hares and other 

 small mammals, sometimes attacking young fawns and 

 lambs, but the stories of its killing full grown deer are 

 probably fiction. It is said to swim well, and its ordinary 

 gait is a long gallop like that of a hare, but when leaping 

 over the ground with the back arched it presents a pecu- 



