266 Practical Game Preserving. 



in game preserves, and also in poultry yards, which assure 

 its eventual extermination. 



When it attacks poultry, there is, with the exception of 

 the fox, no more ruthless destroyer of ducks and fowls, 

 and an entrance having been once obtained in the poultry 

 house, the inmates have little chance of escape unless 

 something occurs to disturb the marauder. The peculiarity 

 of only eating the heads, or, to speak more correctly, of 

 only partially eating the heads of all it kills, is no less striking 

 in the case of poultry. Further, this varmint seems to 

 have a liking for lambs, and instances of their having been 

 killed and carried off by it are by no means rare ; indeed, 

 there is no limit to what it will attack and destroy, and in 

 numbers so large that if it be compared in this regard 

 to other vermin, we think it will head the list. 



Being rather a prolific animal, the wild cat stands a 

 somewhat better chance of survival than the martens, the 

 more so on account of its habits. About five or six young 

 are produced at a birth, but sometimes less, and the nest 

 is formed by the female, which is smaller and less brightly 

 coloured than the male, in the usual lair, without search or 

 wish for any other spot of more suitable situation. The 

 young are littered about May or June, and come to maturity 

 in about the same length of time as fox cubs. The cry of 

 the wild cat is uncommonly weird, and of peculiar reach ; 

 indeed, the distance at which these varmints answer one 

 another is very surprising ; and its utterance at night, 

 resounding through the silence of the Scotch moors, is 

 a particularly unpleasant one, of an unearthly nature, 

 and well calculated to produce ghostly, superstitious fears 



