346 THE WILD CAT. 



is usually two or three ; four is not uncommon, and 

 as many as seven have been reported, but this sug- 

 gests interbreeding. It all depends upon the food- 

 conditions and the age of the mother. Since few 

 wild cats live to grow old, few have large families ; 

 and fewer still reach the stage of saddling them- 

 selves with a second litter as the year advances. 



HOME-RANGE. 



The wild cat is a creature of very limited home- 

 range. If man did not exist, and there were no 

 wolves and such like, it would probably live and 

 die within a few hundred yards of some central 

 point, its range being dependent upon the abun- 

 dance or otherwise of food. As things are, a wild 

 cat, or, rather, a brace of wild cats, haunt one 

 locality till they are scared out. Then they be- 

 take themselves elsewhere; and thus their home- 

 range may appear to be greater than it is. 



At one time the life of the wild cat doubtless 

 consisted of hunting until it was satisfied, then of 

 basking on a pine-limb in the sunshine, occasionally 

 stretching its long claws into the pink bark, or 

 fawning under .the stream-bank where the herbs 

 grow rank, rubbing its face against those that 

 appealed to its fancies a life of idle plenty befitting 

 its abnormal powers among the creatures of the 

 wild. To-day we see the wild cat hanging on by a 

 few remaining threads all too slender to hold its 

 weight hanging on at the outside edge, skulking 

 and nocturnal in habits a creature which, perhaps, 

 we could well afford to lose, were it not that its loss 

 would rob our remote Highlands of yet another of 

 their rapidly shrinking romances. 



Edinburgh : Printed by W. & E. Chambers, Limited. 



