WILD-CAT HUNTING. 159 
his cruel hold, the more vigorously to defend himself. 
Ringwood, though covered with jetting blood, jumped 
upon the cat, and shook away as if unharmed in the 
contest. 
Sportsmen, in hunting the cat, provide themselves 
generally with pistols—not for the purpose of killing 
the cat, but to annoy it, so that it will leap from the 
tree, when it has taken to one. Sometimes from negli- 
gence these infantile shooting-irons are left at home, and 
the cat gets safely out of the reach of sticks, or whatever 
other missile may be convenient. This is a most pro- 
voking affair; dogs and sportsmen lose all patience ; 
and as no expedient suggests itself, the cat escapes for 
the time. ; 
I once knew a cat thus perched out of reach, that 
was brought to terms in a very singular manner. 
The tree on which the animal was lodged being a 
very high one, and secure from all interruption, it looked 
down upon its pursuers with the most provoking compla- 
cency ; every effort to dislodge it had failed, and the 
hunt was about to be abandoned in despair, when one 
of the sportsmen discovered a grape-vine that passed 
directly over the cat’s body, and by running his eyes 
along its circumvolutions, traced it down to the ground ; 
a judicious jerk at the vine touched the cat on the rump ; 
this was most unexpected, and it instantly leaped to the 
ground from a height of over forty feet; striking on its 
fore paws, and throwing a sort of rough somerset, it 
