Ground Vermin Wild Cats. 263 



the rest of the British Isles, where it is most assuredly 

 doomed. 



There would, were they at all numerous, be no worse 

 vermin than these animals, and the amount of havoc they 

 cause amongst game and rabbits is astonishing ; and 

 again in this varmint do we find the characteristic of 

 several of its congeners of killing more for the sake of 

 killing than for want of food. But a further and still 

 more inexplicable feature in the habits of the wild cat 

 is the remarkable liking it seems to have for the heads 

 of birds and animals, that being, with but extremely 

 rare exceptions, the only part of its prey which it deigns 

 to consume ; and grouse are often found so neatly cap- 

 tured and killed, simply minus their heads, that it is 

 a constant practice to serve them at table as if they 

 had come by their death in a proper and, to us, satisfactory 

 manner. 



No bird or animal of any sort at all liable to the attacks 

 of the more common vermin may expect to escape the 

 clutches of the wild cat in those parts where it is still to 

 be found ; and it has certainly a more extensive list of 

 victims than any varmint common in our game preserves. 

 Of course, there is some difficulty in describing and noting 

 the habits of an animal now so rare in the southern parts 

 of the kingdom ; and consequently these remarks must be 

 taken as referring more to what was vermin in England 

 and what is still such in Scotland, &c. St. John, one of 

 our most acute observers of animal life in the British Isles, 

 says, in his " Highland Sports," that the wild cat inhabits 

 the most lonely and inaccessible ranges of rock and moun- 



S 2 



