10 AUTUMNS IN ARGYLESHIRE 



a wild cat fell to four successive shots. Mr. 

 Egremont Lascelles, while watching for deer near 

 the woods by Loch Craignish, had a long shot 

 with the rifle at another, as it crossed the steep 

 brae at the back of Ormaig farm. It was trapped 

 very shortly afterwards, and proved to be a true 

 wild cat. Fifty years ago, according to Brodie, 

 the old keeper, there were a good many upon the 

 estate, and he told me that he had taken as large 

 a number as six in the course of one visit to his 

 traps between Kilmartin and the head of Loch 

 Awe. This interesting creature which, according 

 to Lydekker, has been an inhabitant of Great 

 Britain since the age of the mammoth, would be 

 by this time as extinct as that quadruped but for 

 the deer forests, in the remote recesses of which it 

 still finds a sanctuary. I do not, however, agree 

 with Mr. Lydekker in ascribing its extermination 

 from many of its former haunts to the increased 

 use of fire-arms. Nocturnal in its habits, it cannot 

 often afford a mark for the gun of a sportsman 

 or keeper ; but it is very easily trapped, and the 

 enhanced value of moors in the Highlands has 

 naturally led to the destruction of so undesirable 

 a neighbour for game and black-game. 



A curious adventure with one of these crea- 

 tures is described by Mr. Alfred Lubbock in his 

 " Memories of Eton and Etonians." He killed 

 this " fine genuine w T ild stump-tailed cat, Felix 

 catus," in 1862, in the forest of Wyvis, near 



