440 CARNIVORES. 



climates the colour of this lynx is almost white, although usually of a dark grey 

 tinged with chestnut, with the limbs darker than the body. The back and the 

 upper part of the legs are mottled with darker blotches, and the tips of the hairs 

 are white. 



The Canada lynx extends from Canada at least as far south as the Adirondack 

 Mountains, near New York ; and is the loup cervier of the French Canadians. In 

 the Adirondacks, where it is nowhere common, it preys, according to Dr. Hart 

 Merriam, " upon the northern hare, and such other small mammals as it can catch, 

 and upon the ruffed grouse and spruce partridge. It has also been known to 

 devour pigs, lambs, and young fawns ; but the accounts of its attacking full-grown 

 deer are not to be credited. Its haunts are in the deep forests and bush districts, 

 remote from the paths of man ; and consequently it rarely intrudes upon the* 

 barn-yard. Its ordinary gait when in a hurry is a long gallop, like that of the 

 hare, and it is said to swim well. The female commonly has two young at a 

 birth, her lair being usually located in a cavern or hollow tree." 



Mr. Nattrass states that this lynx when leaping over the ground, as it does in 

 a series of successive bounds, with back arched, the tail so short as to be almost 

 indiscernible, presents altogether a quaint, weird appearance, which has been 

 described by many hunters and backwoodsmen as laughable and peculiar in the 

 extreme. The same writer also relates an instance where a lynx, when hard 

 pressed by dogs, took to the water and swam right across Lake Leman, of which 

 the width is almost a mile. He likewise states that the lynx will feast upon the 

 forsaken prey of the puma, which may account for the legends of its killing the 

 larger kinds of deer; smaller deer fall, however, frequent victims to the lynx. 

 Mr. Nattrass records a cross-breed between the lynx and the domestic cat. 



" The lynx," he says, " is seldom hunted systematically, as are the deer, elk, 

 bear, and other game animals, unless it be by professional hunters or trappers, 

 who value him for his pelt. With them the usual method is to hunt him with 

 dogs trained to follow the trail by scent. In other cases his track is followed 

 through the snow, by the eye, by a party of hunters, who, when starting out, 

 must be prepared to make a long, hard tramp of many hours, or possibly 

 several days. I have known a party, who wanted a lynx badly, to follow the trail 

 of one all day, returning home as darkness set in. They returned to the hunt next 

 morning, took up the trail where they left it the night before, and followed it all 

 day, and again the next day, till they finally trailed the beast to its lair, treed, 

 and shot it." 



The next form of the American lynxes is known indifferently as 

 the bay lynx, red cat, or American wild cat, and is the chat cervier of 

 the French Canadians, and the F. rufa of those zoologists who regard it entitled to 

 rank as a distinct species. In the typical form the fur is shorter and less abundant 

 than that of the Canada lynx, and is of uniform reddish colour, while the tail appears 

 to be more bushy. Its size is also somewhat inferior to that of the last-named 

 kind. There is, however, a handsomer spotted variety of the bay lynx occurring 

 in Texas and Southern California, which was formerly regarded as a distinct 

 species (F. maculata) ; and a second from Washington and Oregon, distinguished 

 by vertical dark streaks on the body, this variety having been named (F. fasciata). 



