From Fox's Earth 



victims. Urgent need arose for more drastic 

 treatment. Guns went out, and among them they 

 had an excellent bag. Some were known to have 

 returned to the houses. Some drowsed away the 

 day in barns, and some were nomads. Nothing 

 that was not common ; no trace of a wild strain was 

 in any of them. Yet wild cats were once there, 

 and half- wild cats. If an extreme instance, this is 

 sufficiently representative. To such through two 

 gradations have come the old denizens of the 

 wood. A probable condition for any future for 

 the wild cat, say by reintroduction, would be an 

 abatement of this nuisance a tax on cats, as on 

 curs. 



A few years ago I tried the only way of finding 

 out the hold, if any, the semi-wild cat had in 

 Scotland. If yet abroad, the person who saw or 

 trapped or shot them must be the gamekeeper, or, 

 at least, he was sure to know. I therefore wrote 

 to the head keeper of all the important estates 

 throughout the Grampian range of Forfar, Perth, 

 and Aberdeen ; and no one of them all knew of 

 either presence or capture. The reports are 

 beside me now. . 



Each cat makes itself felt. Each pair would 

 breed. For each season five young would be 

 added. Unmolested, because unknown, as they 

 seem to have been, they would increase in- 

 definitely. All the more strange that they 

 kept out of sight. All the more convincing the 



34 



