268 Practical Game Preserving. 



soon as they were old enough to provide for themselves. 

 It is hard to discriminate which of these two is the more 

 destructive to game and rabbits, and we are inclined to 

 think that there is little to choose between them. Certainly, 

 if the wild cat is extinct, these are not, and the " eligible 

 opening" left by the felts catus is most excellently (or 

 badly) filled by these wild-tame cats. When once these 

 brutes commence their self-chosen artificial life, nothing 

 will stop them, except, of course, powder or shot, or 

 some other summary kill-and-cure, and the peculiar life 

 they adopt renders them more wary and more difficult 

 to get at every day that they live. Not only so, but they 

 become seriously dangerous, and will not hesitate in some 

 cases to fly at their aggressor. In one instance a great 

 brute flew at the writer, without his even being aware of 

 its presence. Cats which become wild and savage generally 

 increase considerably in size, and become very rough and 

 ragged as to the fur. Indeed, we have caught several the 

 size of which must have been more than half as much 

 again as an average domestic cat. Among the largest 

 measurements we have is that of a cat shot which 

 " taped " from the muzzle to the tip of the tail 4ft. i^in., 

 and stood at the shoulder ift. 4in. This one was killed 

 some years ago in Oxfordshire, and is certainly a very 

 fair example of the size to which they grow. 



Which prove themselves most destructive to game 

 those cats which have taken to poaching, or those which, 

 owing to being left by the dam to shift for themselves, 

 have never known any other mode of life is a point 

 scarcely possible to determine, but we fancy the former 



