259 



THE WILD-CAT. 



THE wild-cat is now rare in this country. Although I have 

 spent a great part of my life in the most mountainous districts 

 of Scotland, where killing vermin formed the gamekeeper's 

 principal business, and often my own recreation, I have never 

 seen more than five or six genuine wild- cats. Many, on 

 reading this, will perhaps wonder at my statement, and even 

 give it a flat contradiction, by alleging the numbers that have 

 come under their own notice. Nay, I was even gravely told 

 by a gentleman from the south of England, a keen observer and 

 fond of natural history, that there were wild-cats there, 1 and 

 the skin of a cat killed in one of the southern counties was 

 sent to me as a proof. This, I need hardly say, was the large 

 and sleek coat of an overgrown Tom, whose ancestors, no 

 doubt, had purred upon the hearth-rug. 



I am far from meaning that there are no cats running wild 

 in England ; of course, wherever there are tame cats, some of 

 them, especially the very old ones, will forsake their homes, 

 and live by plunder in the woods. These may also breed ; 

 but their progeny, though un domesticated, will always be 

 widely different in habits, in appearance, in strength, and in 



1 1 have been frequently assured that wild-cats have been killed on the Cum- 

 berland and Westmoreland hills ; but, never having seen any specimens, I cannot 

 speak from my own knowledge. There is no doubt that martens formerly ex- 

 isted in some of the most hilly and wooded districts of England. 



