148 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Genus : Lynx. — (Rafinesque.) 

 Characteristics. — Head short, broad and rounded ; ears more or less 

 tufted ; incisors, six in each jaw ; canines, two in each jaw ; molars, six 

 in each jaw ; body clothed with loose, fine fur ; tail short and blunted, 

 scarcely longer than the head. 



Lynx rufus, (Rafinesque.) — Bay Ltnx, Wild Cat. 

 This animal is now quite rare in this State — one in several years 

 being about all that are taken. Although very active, and possessed of 

 great muscular power, it is not by any means courageous, but is timid, 

 and even cowardly, almost always flying from man, and in fact from any 

 animal larger than a hare. The following interesting account of the 

 habits of this animal is given by Audubon, in his work on the Quadrupeds 

 of America. 



" The wild cat not only makes great havoc among the chickens, turkeys 

 and ducks of the planter, but destroys many of the smaller quadrupeds, 

 as well as partridges, and such other birds as he can surprise roosting on 

 the ground. The hunters often run down the wild cat with packs of fox- 

 hounds. When hard pressed by fast dogs, and in an open country, he 

 ascends a tree with the agility of a squirrel, but the baying of the dogs 

 calling the hunter to the spot, the unerring rifle brings him to the ground, 

 when, if not mortally wounded, he fights fiercely with the pack until 

 killed. lie will, however, when pursued by hunters with hounds, fre- 

 quently elude both dogs and huntsmen, by an exercise of instinct so 

 closely bordering on reason, that we are bewildered in the attempt to 

 separate it from the latter. No sooner does he become aware that the 

 enemy is on his track, than, instead of taking a straight course for the 

 deepest forest, he speeds to one of the largest old fields, overgrown with 

 briary thickets, in the neighborhood ; and having reached this tangled 

 maze, he runs in a variety of circles, crossing and re-crossing his path 

 many times, and when he thinks the scent has been diffused sufficiently 

 in different directions by this manoeuvre, to puzzle both men and dogs, 

 he creeps slyly forth, and makes for the woods, or for some well-known 

 swamp ; and if he should be lucky enough to find a half-dried-up pond, 

 or a part of the swamp on which the clayey bottom is moist and sticky, 

 he seems to know that the adhesive soil covering his feet and legs, so far 

 destroys the scent, that although the hounds may be in full cry on reach- 

 ing the place, and while crossing it, they will lose the track on the opposite 

 side, and perliaps not regain it without some difficulty and delay. 



" At other times the ' cat,' when chased by the dogs, gains some tract 

 of burnt wood, where fallen and upright trees are alike blackened and 

 scorched by the fire that has run among them, burning before it every 

 blade of grass, every leaf and shrub, and destroying many of the largest 



