THE WILD CAT. 49 



because that impairs the action of its retractile claws, 

 it is said sometimes to catch them in their native ele- 

 ment. We have never seen it in the act of pouncing 

 upon them in the water ; but at a waterfall (that of 

 Kilmorac) in the north of Scotland, where, in the 

 season of the fish ascending the river, we once observed 

 a wild cat for more than a hour, crouching and watch- 

 ing the finny adventurers, though certainly without 

 once making a dart into the foaming stream, which, 

 indeed, from the height of the fall, the volume of 

 water, and the narrowness of the gorge in which it is 

 confined, would have been a daring attempt even for 

 an animal that could swim. In the domestic cat, water 

 sooner injures the fur than in almost any other animal, 

 as its fur is dry, and free from that oily matter by 

 which the skins of many other animals are protected. 

 It is understood to be chiefly owing to this dryness of 

 the fur, that electricity is so easily excited in the back 

 of a cat. Whether the wild one has the same pecu- 

 liarity has not been mentioned; though, as we have 

 seen the animal exposed to rain, without appearing to 

 feel the same inconvenience as the domestic cat, we 

 should therefore conclude, that the fur has some 

 water-proof quality ; and we have observed, that when 

 the skin of the wild-cat was used as a fur, it did not 

 suffer so much from rain as that of the domestic one. 

 A good deal of the difference may, however, be owing 

 to the differences of atmosphere to which the two 

 animals are exposed. 



Formidable as the wood-cat is, it is, however, often 

 attacked, and sometimes foiled, by an inhabitant of the 

 same kind of situations, the MARTEN. 

 F 



