12 COMMON AMERICAN WILD CAT. 



than he deserved, compared with those beings of a superior nature, who, 

 not understanding that " Honesty is the best policy " outdo our Wild-Cat 

 in his destructive habits, until the laws, so just and useful, when mildly, 

 but always, enforced, put an etfectual stop to their crLminal proceedings. 



The Wild-Cat is a great destroyer of eggs, and never finds a nest of 

 grouse or partridge, wild turkey or other bird, without sucking every 

 egg in it. Indeed, it will if practicable, seize on both young and old 

 birds of theise and other species. Its '^penchant" for a "poulet au 

 naturel " has suggested the following method of capturing it in Georgia, as 

 related to us by our friend Major Leconte, late of the United States Army. 



A large and .strong box-trap is constructed, and a chicken-cock, 

 (rooster,) placed at the farthest end of it from the door, is tied by one 

 leg, so that he cannot move. There is a stout wire partition about half 

 way between the fowl and the door, which prevents the Cat when enter- 

 ing the trap, from seizing the bird. The trap is then set so that when 

 the animal enters, the open door closes behind him by a spring, (commonly 

 the branch of some tree bent down for the purpose, and released by a 

 trigger set at the entrance or just within the trap.) These traps are placed 

 in different parts of the plantations, or in the woods, and the Wild-Cat is 

 generally attracted by the crowing of the cock at early dawn of day. 



Majok Leconte has caught many of them by this artifice, on and about 

 his plantations in the neighbourhood of Savannah, in Georgia ; and this 

 method of captm-ing the Wild-Cat is also quite common in South Caro- 

 lina. Indeed, this species does not seem to possess the suspicion and 

 cunning inherent in the fox, enabling the latter to avoid a trap of al- 

 most any kind. We have seen the Wild-Cat taken from the common 

 log-traps set for racoons. We saw one in a cage, that had been caught 

 in a common box-trap, baited w-ith a dead partridge, and have heard 

 intelligent domestics residing on the banks of the Santee river, state, 

 that after setting their steel traps for otters, they frequently found the 

 Wild-Cat caught in them instead. 



When this animal discovers a flock of wild ttrrkeys, he will generally 

 follow them at a little distance for some tune, and after having ascertain- 

 ed the direction in which they are proceeding, make a rapid detour, and 

 concealing himself behind a fallen tree, or in the lower branches of some 

 leafy maple, patiently wait in ambush until the birds approach, when 

 he suddenly springs on one of them, if near enough, and with one bound 

 secures it. We once, while resting on a log in the woods, on the banks 

 of the Wabash river, perceived two wild turkey cocks at some distance 

 below us, under the bank near the water, pluming and piclcing their 

 feathers ; on a sudden, one of them flew across the river, and the other we 



