8 COMMON AMERICAN WILD CAT. 



In some parts of Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the 

 Wild Cat has at times become so great a nuisance as to have aroused the 

 spirit of vengeance in the hearts of the planters, who are constant suf- 

 ferers from his depredations. They have learned by experience, that one 

 Cat will do as much mischief among the pigs and poultry as a dozen 

 gray foxes. They are now determined to allow their hounds, which 

 they had hitherto kept solely for the favourite amusement of deer hunt- 

 ing, and which had always been whipped-in, from the trail of the Wild- 

 Cat, to pursue him, through thicket, briar patch, marsh, and morass, until 

 he is caught or killed. 



Arrangements for the Cat-hunt are made over night. Two or three 

 neighbours form the party, each one bringing with him all the hounds he 

 can muster. We have seen thirty of the latter brought together on such 

 occasions, some of which were not inferior to the best we have examined 

 in England, indeed, great numbers of the finest fox-hounds are annual- 

 ly imported into Carolina. 



At the earliest da^vn, the party is summoned to the spot previously 

 fixed on as the place of meeting. A horn is sounded, not low and with 

 a single blast, as is usual in hunting the deer, lest the timid animal should 

 be startled from its bed among the broom-grass (Andropagon dissitifiorus) 

 and bound away out of the drive, beyond the reach of the hunter's 

 double-barrel loaded with buckshot ; but with a loud, long, and oft-re- 

 peated blast, wakening the echoes that rise from the rice-flelds and 

 marshes, and are reverberated from shore to shore of the winding 

 sluggish river, until lost among the fogs and shadows of the distant 

 forest. 



An answering horn is heard half a mile off, and anon comes another 

 response from a different quarter. The party is soon collected, 

 they are mounted, not on the fleetest and best-blooded horses, but 

 on the most sure-footed, (sometimes called " Old field Tackles,") which 

 know how to avoid the stump-holes on the burnt grounds of the pine 

 lands, which stand the fire of the gun, and which can not only go with 

 tolerable speed, but are, to use a common expression, " tough as a pine 

 knot." The hunters greet each other in the open-hearted manner char- 

 acteristic of the Southern planter. Each pack of dogs is under the 

 guidance of a colom-ed driver, whose business it is to control the hounds 

 and encourage and aid them in the hunt. The drivers ride in most cases 

 the fleetest horses on the ground, in order to be able, whilst on a deer 

 hunt to stop the dogs. These men, who are so important to the success 

 of the chase, are possessed of a good deal of intelligence and shrewd- 

 ness, are usually much petted, and regarding themselves as belonging to 



