10 GILPIN ON THE MAMMALS OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



snow OAvl, in his well-faiTecl liiiibs, is abundant in the Province 

 He loves the thick covers and dense spruce-pine woods of the 

 midland counties of King's and Annapolis, in which he hunts the 

 varying hare, and surprises the dusky grouse, and from which he 

 descends at night to the barns and sheepfolds in the cleared land. 

 He is very destructive to sheep. He rarely is found near the sea- 

 board, or amongst the scanty cover of the granite hills where the 

 red cat abounds, and never like the latter comes out in the 

 open, or into the town in daylight. When pursued, he runs in a 

 high awkward gallop, with an arched back, leaving a very broad 

 trail upon the snow, and soon takes refuge in a tree. About 

 twenty-five years ago the country about Annapolis E.oyal was in- 

 fested with them, when Mr. George Hardwicke, a young farmer, 

 with a love for hunting, introduced hunting them with a fox- 

 hound. Mounting his horse by day-break of a winter morning, he 

 would ride ten or twelve miles into the forest, dismount, and beat 

 the woods for game. In half an hour the hound would find, and 

 in about twenty minutes more have treed the Lynx in the fork of 

 a spruce-pine tree. Following at his leisure the track on the snow, 

 he easily tumbled her out of the tree by a charge of buckshot, as 

 she hissed and glared at him like an angry cat, Avith erect fur and 

 arched back. He took twenty during the whiter, sometimes two 

 in a day, and a right pleasant sight it was to see him return home, 

 at the close of a short winter's day, with one, if not two, hanging 

 across his croup, as he rode his mare into the settlement, his snow- 

 shoes, axe and gun crossing his broad shoulders, all making a 

 pretty woodland scene with the white snow and dark firs beyond. 

 Though cowardly and skulking when opposed to man, one who has 

 witnessed his sudden pounce upon his prey can readily understand 

 his ravages among sheep. 



Lynx, rufus, (Wild Cat). — A very large male, shot by Mr. 

 Stayner as he was prowling about the environs of Halifax in 1861, 

 measured — from tip of nose to end of tail, 3ft. 4ins. ; to end of hind 

 leg, 4ft. 4in.; from tip to tip of ear, over forehead, lOins.; tail. 

 Tins. ; the colour above rusty, with a general hoary tint ; inside of 

 fore legs, belly, and beneath tail whitish ; obsciu'ely spotted with 

 red on flanks and outside paws, and two or three black bars inside 

 fore leg; ear black, with a peculiar half-moon white patch on the 



