THE Zootocist—Marcu, 1875. — 4377 
the sides are marked with black interrupted stripes in a very tigerine 
fashion; there are also some small zigzag black lines running from 
between the eyes, over the head, and meeting the spinal stripes just above 
the shoulders. The tail.is ringed with black or blackish brown, and the 
tip is of the same dark hue. Its throat, breast, belly and feet are white; 
lips black or nearly so; and its teeth and claws are worthy of any member 
of the feline race. It isa male, and must, I should say, have been some- © 
what destructive to the game and rabbits in the locality where it had taken 
up its abode; but I do not hear that its depredations were noticed, or its 
presence suspected until Colonel Wright killed it from the branch of a tree. 
I may state that the locality where it was killed is not a great distance 
from those celebrated heaths where the local moth, Eulepia cribrum, is to 
be met with, and which neighbourhood is, I know, rather familiar to some 
of the entomological readers of the ‘ Zoologist.’ Possibly the creature I have 
been describing is but a descendant of some domestic cat run wild, and a 
woodland and predatory life had tended to make it, in a popular sense, 
“a wild cat,” yet it will be seen from my description that in one or two 
points it differs materially from its may-be domestic progenitors.—G@. B. 
Corbin ; Ringwood, Hants. 
Wild Cat in Hertfordshire.—A fine specimen of a male wild cat was 
caught at Scales Park, Hertfordshire, by Mr. Cotterel’s gamekeeper Chap- 
man, who presented it to Mr. James Rolfe, of Clavenny, Essex, and is now 
in my possession for preservation.—T.. Travis; Gold-street, Saffron Walden, 
Essex. [Is it perfectly certain that the specimen is a true wild cat, and 
not one of the domesticated species that has run wild? We shall be willing 
to identify the species if the specimen is sent for inspection.—Editor of the 
‘ Field.’ 
[In the Second Edition of Bell’s ‘ Quadrupeds,’—a publication to which 
we have so long been looking for more extended information respecting our 
wild animals,—I find no additional information for differentiating the wild 
and domestic cats; nor are any instances given, or specimens noted, to 
which the naturalist may refer as demonstrating with precision what the 
learned author really intends by his “wild cat.” He says, “It is now 
entirely restricted to Scotland, some of the woods in the North of England, 
the woody mountains of Wales, and some parts of Ireland.” When we 
compare the vagueness of this passage with the extreme care exercised in 
our works on British Birds, it is impossible not to be struck with the 
contrast. ‘The following queries seem not only allowable, but pertinent :— 
1. Has a wild cat, or has any species of Felis distinct from our domestic 
mouser, really been killed in Britain? 2. Ifso, when, where, and by whom ? 
8. Having obtained satisfactory answers to these questions, then follows the 
third—Where is the specimen to be seen and examined? It is evident that 
Mr. Corbin’s pussy is partially piebald, a common result, and an almost 
