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THE WILD CAT. 



The species of Cat which was thus glorified by these ghastly honors of the charnel- 

 house, is the animal which is represented in the engraving. It is supposed to be the 

 original stock from which descended the race of domestic Cats which found their 

 home by the Egyptian's hearth, and were so piously cherished by that strange, intel- 

 lectual, inexplicable people. It is indigenous to Nubia, and has been found on the 

 western side of the Nile, inhabiting a district which was well furnished with brush- 

 wood, and broken up into rocky ground. 



The general color of this animal is something like that of the Pampas Cat, but not 

 so clear or bright, as a brownish-gray tint is washed over the white portions. On the 

 back, the color is deeper than on the remainder of the body. The under portions of 

 the body and inside of the limbs are a grayish-white, the gray disappearing under the 

 throat and about the cheeks, leaving those parts of a pure white. Many streaks and 

 dashes of black, or ochry-yellow, are spread over the body and limbs, two of the lighter 

 stripes, encircling the neck. Its eye is bright golden yellow. 



The Egyptian Cat is about the size of an ordinary domestic cat, being nine or ten 

 inches in height, and two feet five inches in length ; the tail is about nine inches long 



EGYPTIAN CAT. Fells Maniculata. 



FEW of the Felidae are so widely spread, or so generally known as the WILD CAT. 

 It is found not only in this country, but over nearly the whole of Europe, and has been 

 seen in Northern Asia, and Nepaul. 



In England the Wild Cat is almost extinct, having been gradually exterminated by 

 civilization and the conversion of forests and waste land into arable ground. It now 

 very seldom occurs that a real Wild Cat is found even in an English forest, for the 

 creature appears to be driven gradually northwards, finding its last fortress among the 

 bleak and barren ranges of the Scottish hills. In Scotland it still lingers, but its 

 numbers seem to diminish rapidly, and the time is not very far distant when the Wild 

 Cat will be as entirely extinct as the wolf. 



It is true that many so-called Wild Cats are found in the snares set by the game-keeper 

 to protect the pheasants, hares, and patridges under his charge, but in ninety-nine 

 cases out of every hundred, these captured robbers are nothing more than domesticated 

 cats which have shaken off the trammels of their civilization, and have taken to a savage 



