WILD CAT. 221 



animal belongs, without recognizing at once their perfect 

 adaptation to the strongest carnivorous habits. The 

 lithe and agile body ; the light, yet powerful limbs ; the 

 retractility of the claws ; the firm fibre of the muscles ; 

 the short jaws, restricted to a simple vertical motion, and 

 furnished with few, but strong and trenchant teeth; offer 

 altogether a combination of characters, all tending to fit 

 these animals for the pursuit and destruction of living 

 prey, to a degree which points them out as constituting 

 the typical group in that division of the mammiferous 

 quadrupeds, which are nourished by animal food. Even 

 the Weasels, sanguinary as they are, and with a con- 

 formation fitted for the capture and destruction of the 

 smaller animals, yet exhibit in the general structure of 

 the organs of motion in the number, strength, and form 

 of their teeth, and in many other particulars, a deviation 

 from the type, a weakness and indecision in their zoolo- 

 gical characters, which place them below the Cats in the 

 intensity and force of their carnivorous propensity. If 

 the perfection of organization in an animal consist in 

 the completeness of its adaptation to that animal's 

 habits, then all the forms, innumerable and varied as 

 they are, which crowd before us to attest the immensity 

 and grandeur of creative wisdom, are alike perfect ; but 

 this adaptation is certainly most striking and obvious, in 

 those prominent and typical groups which stand out as 

 the landmarks of zoological classification, the centres, 

 as it were, of the complicated system of creation. 



The Wild Cat is the only species of the family which 

 is indigenous to the British Islands. In earlier times, 

 when woods and forests covered many parts of the 

 kingdom, which are now reclaimed and devoted to agri- 

 culture, the Wild Cat was much more generally distri- 

 buted over the face of the country ; but it is now almost 



