OCCASIONAL NOTES. 219 
when the family left for the seashore labours in the morning. Mackenzie, 
—such was the crofter’s name,—ordering his family to fall back, armed 
himself with a bludgeon and entered the house by the door, in order to 
do battle with the cat. To prevent the cat from escaping through the 
open window, he directed his brother to watch the marauder at that not 
unlikely point of exit. Now the brother, a big, burly man, was the boat- 
carpenter of the district, and usually at daily work, though on this particular 
occasion assisting his brother in sea-ware gathering. The carpenter, be it 
understood, had on his everyday working trousers, originally of strong pilot 
cloth, and now all over, particularly about the knees and seat, so covered 
with layer upon layer of tar that it was Stronger and thicker than any 
tarpaulin. When Mackenzie entered the kitchen and made a stroke at the 
cat, the latter made a dash at the open window-pane. The carpenter, in his 
excitement, could think of no better way to prevent the cat’s exit than by 
placing that part of his body on which his trousers were thickest and 
baggiest right in the opening. ‘The cat made such a vigorous dash at the 
opening that he got his head between the carpenter’s legs, and further he 
could not get, though he struggled and clawed with all his might, for the 
carpenter now literally sat upon him, squeezing him firm and fast against 
the window-sill, which in such cottages is only about two feet from the 
ground. The well-tarred seat of the carpenter's trousers was strong and 
stout, as has been said, and it had need to be, for a wild cat’s claws hard at 
work are no joke. The carpenter did not know himself how long they might 
afford sufficient protection, and he shouted lustily for immediate assistance. 
Mackenzie came rushing out of the door, bludgeon in hand, and dealt the 
eat stroke after stroke on the head, the granite window-sill acting as 
chopping-block, until the cat expired, and the carpenter could at last move 
away from the window-sill, thankful to have escaped with a few scratches of 
no great importance, considering how matters might have been had his 
_ unmentionables been of slighter and thinner texture. The carcase of this 
cat, a good deal mutilated by the energy of the bludgeon-work to which it 
had been subjected, I saw that same afternoon, and can bear witness that 
it was a veritable Wild Cat, of such monstrous size, too, that Mackenzie 
avowed that if the kitchen had not been so dark that he could only see the 
animal imperfectly, and was thus unaware of its hugeness, he never would 
have ventured a blow at it, and would only have been too glad to allow it 
to escape scot-free by any exit it chose. Upon the whole, then, a pretty 
safe conclusion is that, in the West Highland districts mentioned, Wild 
Cats, though not common, are far from being extinct.—ALEx. SrEwarr 
(Ballachulish Manse, Nether Lochaber). 
Pine Marten in Cumpertanp. — A Marten-cat was sent to me on 
April 2nd, which had been trapped by a gamekeeper at the head of 
