Ill 



WILD CAT, MARTEN, AND POLE- 

 CAT 



IT is now many years since that most robust 

 of naturalists, John Colquhoun, deplored the 

 disappearance of the wild cat from the 

 Highlands. He knew it well, in all its 

 feral panoply. He describes it minutely, and 

 from the life. In his breezy "Moor and Loch" is 

 a presentment, not quite up to the standard of 

 modern illustration, of the largest female ever 

 taken in Dumbartonshire. There it appears 

 grey, rough-haired, regularly striped, big-headed, 

 square-jawed, and generally forbidding. The 

 tail longer than, though not so thick as, that of 

 the male. The pose crouching. 



And on the authority of those who cannot be 

 sure that they have ever seen a real wild cat 

 alive, we are asked to believe, that several, bearing 

 every point, and fitted to take the place of the 

 Dumbarton cat on the page, are still prowling 

 about. Some of them are even exhibited, to the 

 delight of the curious, the majority of whom can 

 scarcely be well enough informed to have an 



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