266 APPENDIX 



It was probably more for its skin than for diversion 

 that the wild cat was hunted, as its fur was much used 

 for trimming dresses at one time. 



The wild cat is believed to be now extinct, not only 

 in England and Wales, but in a great part of the South 

 of Scotland. A writer in the new edition of the Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica (art. " Cat ") expresses the opinion that 

 the wild cat still exists in Wales and in the North of 

 England, but gives no proof of its recent occurrence 

 there. 



Harvie-Brown in his "Vertebrate Fauna of Argyll" 

 (1892) defines the limit of the range of the wild cat by 

 a line drawn from Oban to Inverness ; northward and 

 westward of this line, he states, the animal still existed. 

 But there is no doubt that of late years the cessation of 

 vermin trapping in many parts of Scotland, which has 

 caused a marked increase in the golden eagle, has had 

 the same effect upon the wild cat. 



The natural history chapter of the wild cat is taken 

 by the Duke of York from G. de F. ; did we not know 

 this, some confusion might have arisen through the fact 

 being mentioned that there are several kinds of wild 

 cat, whereas only one was known to the British Isles. 

 G. de F. says there were wild cats as large as leopards 

 which went by the name of loups-serviers or cat wolves, 

 both of which names he declares to be misnomers. He 

 evidently refers to the Felis Lynx or Lynx vulgaris, which 

 he properly classes as a " manner of wild cat," although 

 some of the ancient writers have classed them as wolves 

 (Pliny, Lib. viii. cap. 34). 



WOLF. For a long time it was a popular delusion 

 that wolves had been entirely exterminated in England 

 and Wales in the reign of the Saxon King Edgar (956— 

 957), but Mr. J. E. Harting has by his researches proved 

 beyond doubt that they existed some centuries later, and 

 did not entirely disappear until the reign of Henry VII. 

 (1485-1509). 



