THE WILD CAT. 343 



is indicated by the fact that very few creatures are 

 sufficiently rapid in movement to evade it. 



It is probable that in forest country, where birds 

 are plentiful and easily caught, and where mice 

 abound in the leaves, the wild cat subsists chiefly 

 on such small prey ; but as a rule it haunts country 

 where larger game is abundant, and where its 

 activities are not necessarily limited to woodland 

 fare. It may surprise the whitethroat in the 

 bushes, or the ringdove on her nest in the fir- 

 thicket ; or, again, it may feast upon ptarmigan, 

 grouse, black-game, or pheasant caught napping in 

 the open moor or on the bracken-slope. Mountain 

 hares and rabbits it kills in large numbers, but all 

 the wild cats prefer feathers to fur. Generally 

 they kill what they can catch most easily, and in 

 the spring of the year young rabbits and the 

 young of all kinds of birds, whether sacred to 

 man's possession or not, form their prey. The wild 

 cat has also been known to destroy roe-deer fawns, 

 and it is even more destructive than Reynard 

 where young lambs are concerned. Thus not 

 only the hand of every keeper, but that of every 

 Highland shepherd, is raised against it, which 

 accounts for its present rarity. The wild cat 

 could probably stand the drainage imposed by 

 keepers alone, but when the shepherd joins hands 

 with the keepers it is all up with the creature 

 whose fate their forces are united to seal. The 

 shepherds generally know the wild fauna of the 

 hills as well as, if not better than, the keepers, 

 and their method is stealthily to discover the lair 

 of the wild cat, then to destroy her kits either by 

 digging them out, or by poking a long stick with a 

 knife attached into the nest. A tragic incident as 

 to how a shepherd met his fate while engaged in 



