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WILD CAT. 91 



ind most destructive beast we have. He speaks of it as being 

 hree or four times as large as a common Cat. We saw one 

 lead, which had been hunted on the day we saw it ; and it 

 leemed very little inferior, if at all, to the size he mentions." 

 By 1795 Wild Cats seem to have become very scarce in the 

 nountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland ; and the last 

 luthentic occurrence of one of these animals in the district 

 ippears to have been in 1843, when a fine specimen is stated 

 have been killed near Loweswater. It is true that the 

 )ccurrence of the Wild Cat has been recorded in these 

 listricts in quite recent years —even as late as 1871 — but all 

 uch records appear to have been based on large feral speci- 

 nens of the Domestic Cat. 



In Scotland, though still lingering, the Wild Cat is rapidly 

 lecreasing in numbers. According to Messrs. Harvie-Brown 

 nd Buckley, while it has become extremely rare in Assynt 

 luring the last few years, it is still not uncommon in the Reay 

 '\ rest, where it is preserved by the Duke of Westminster. 

 rhese authors write that "one keeper in Assynt killed no less 

 han twenty-six Wild Cats between 1869 and 1880, but of 

 hcse only three during the last six years. Another keeper 

 :illed ten between 1870 and 1873, but no more until the 

 vinter of 1879-80, when he killed four, one of which is 

 lescribed as a monster." In Caithness the Wild Cat is still 

 nore rare, only four having been recorded as being killed 

 luring some ten years before 1880. Writing in 1882 of its 

 present limits in Scotland, the former of the two authors just 

 luoted said that the Wild Cat is "extinct all south and 

 .'ast of a line commencing, roughly speaking, at Oban, in 

 Vrgyllshire, passing up the Brander Pass to Dalmally, follow- 

 ng the boundary of Perthshire, and including Rannoch Moor. 

 rhence continued north-eastward to the junction of the three 

 :ounties of Penh, Forfar, and Aberdeen; thence across the 



