3574 The Zoologist — June, 1873. 



The colour of these caltle, however, seems too ochreous, and the 

 patches of shadow on their beautiful coats are too spotty ; not that 

 1 would wish to see these shadows smoothed down and lost, but 

 even the strongest and most effective lights and shades may be so 

 managed that the spectator shall not notice them any more than he 

 does in nature. No one in lool<ing at a living cow sees these 

 shadows at all, but sees a white unspotted cow : no doubt the 

 shades exist, but Potter, Hofner, Landseer, and especially Davis, use 

 them only as in nature : depicting a shadow correctly is an art of the 

 highest quality, but to accomplish this without betraying ihe pains 

 you have taken is a still higher art, the ars celare arlem : the wild 

 cattle, as they are called, are not to be studied at leisure, and we 

 do not envy the artist who sets up his easel at Chillinghara and 

 waits until they come and stand for their portraits. 



Edward Newman. 



The Wild Cat not a Myth. — As you speak of the wild cat, iu the ' Zoologist ' 

 for April (S. S. 348'2), as a " reputed Scotch mammal," a " mythical creature," 

 Ac, and say, apropos of Mr. Kuox's book, that " it would have l)een pleasant 

 to have learnt more particulars of" it, I send you a few notes concerning a 

 female specimen I have been the happy possessor of since the middle of 

 March, 1872. She is the largest of the five that I have seen alive, and was 

 trapped iu the north-east of Inveruess-shire, in which operation one of the 

 bones of her near fore paw — I believe the radius — was splintered ; but for- 

 tunately not broken quite through ; and although she had a very bad leg for 

 some time, it is now healed, and appears to be quite healthy. She came in 

 season the last week in June, after nearly dying from worms, caused, no 

 doubt, by her having been fed largely on liver while I was away from home : 

 she became as thin as a knife, and gradually lost her appetite, until for three 

 days she ate nothing, and then passed a quantity of worms, which she effected, 

 I believe, by eating some hay. I gave her a dose of powdered glass, but 

 never saw any more worms ; and from that time she rapidly gained flesh, 

 and became, to a limited extent, tame: that is, although she had never left 

 off her habit of perpetually swearing when receiving a visit, she will come, 

 when tolerably hungry, for any one she knows, out of her " bedroom" to the 

 other half of the hutch-cage she inbabits, to receive food. Rabbits appear 

 to be her favourite dish, but she will also eat water-voles, rats, weasels, field 

 mice and house mice, though I do not think she cares much for the last- 

 mentioned animal : pigeons, moorhens, sparrows, and other birds (including 

 eggs), she is very fond of, with the exception, as might be supposed, of rooks, 

 starlings, &c. She will not touch any kind of fish, though so far from 



