312 Practical Game Preserving. 



case may be, is liable to be noticed, have, however, an 

 equally strong attachment to game preserves by night, when 

 their actions are unobserved. These extremely knowing 

 pussies are as great a nuisance as those first mentioned, 

 and have a peculiar habit of all coming to the same preserve, 

 or, at least, to the near neighbourhood of it. They have 

 been known to come several miles, and we have caught 

 cats of this kind whose homes were situated really at a 

 wonderful distance from the scene of their discomfiture. 

 The injury that cats chiefly cause is amongst rabbits, &c., 

 which are being systematically trapped, and, besides these, 

 foxes and dogs are equally destructive. For the better 

 determination to which animal's credit the mischief may 

 be placed, it is necessary to mention that a cat never takes 

 a rabbit out of a trap, but partly or nearly wholly consumes 

 one, leaving the jagged remains in the trap. Further, a 

 dog eats one or two entirely, and buries the remains, which 

 it may subsequently obtain. A fox takes a rabbit from 

 a trap, and, having partly eaten it, leaves the remains lying 

 near ; this it continues to do until its hunger is appeased ; 

 after this it carries them off. 



Besides this kind of mischief, cats are quite capable of 

 catching partridges, &c., and they are particularly fond of 

 traversing rabbit burrows when the burrows are sufficiently 

 large or the cat suitably small. When, however, these two 

 provisos do not occur, cats will often entice kittens away, 

 when these latter work much like ferrets. We have often 

 watched these operations, and on one occasion shot two 

 rabbits bolted by kittens. For the sake of whom it may 

 concern, we subsequently shot the kittens also. Conjectures 



