From Fox's Earth 



Naturalists and keepers alike whose business or 

 pleasure it is to know about the wild life tell me 

 that their haunts are empty. Like the osprey, 

 once a spark of beauty in the adjoining lakes, the 

 wild cat lives only in the fascinating page, where 

 happily it will pass a certain charming immortality. 



Still to the north and west, on the path of 

 retreat, is the varied line of rocks seen from 

 Durness. The cliff called " Far Out Head" is 

 very nearly, if not quite, as northerly a point as 

 Cape Wrath. The caves seem to offer a safe 

 refuge to fugitives from extermination. An old 

 and trusty keeper of Durness, Ewen Campbell, 

 has trapped wild cats, but not for a long time. 



A keeper showed St. John an immense cat, 

 bred between a tame and a wild one. The cat of 

 another keeper had a great antipathy to strangers, 

 not suffering himself to be caressed or indeed 

 scarcely to be looked at. These represent, in 

 Sutherland, the semi-feral cats of the crofts and 

 lodges of the Central Highlands, and were prob- 

 ably duplicated in the woods. 



Where the proprietor took an interest in the 

 wild life of his estates, I addressed myself to 

 him. Nor had he any other account to give. 

 The Duke of Sutherland says the wild cat is 

 almost extinct. ' He might have said altogether, 

 since Ewen Campbell knows nothing about it. 



One of my authorities for the west coast was 

 the late Duke of Argyll. An intelligent steward 



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