Mr. J. Hardy on the Wild Cat in the Border Districts. 247 



who knew the wooded recesses of the ravine better than 

 myself, not to go among the Wild Cats, nor touch their 

 kittens if I came npon them, for if the old ones saw me near 

 their kittens they would spring upon me and tear me to 

 pieces. They were supposed to be in a covert of furze 

 midway up a rocky eminence ; and this place, during the 

 first year or two of my herding, I never dared to explore 

 for fear of them. One day, at the distance of several hundred 

 yards from there, I noticed a large nest on a tree, having 

 all the appearance of the nest of a pair of hoody crows. The 

 tree grew from a deep hollow near the bottom of a precipice, 

 and had a trunk of about fifty feet without branches. At 

 the height of fifty feet its branches began to spread. One of 

 them extended towards a narrow point of rock, that point 

 of rock extending six or seven feet beyond the perpendicular 

 of the precipice. The top of the tree was about forty feet 

 higher than that point ; and the nest about half-way 

 between it and the top. I was at the root of the tree, and 

 having resolved on an ascent, denuded myself of my cordu- 

 roy jacket, and went to work. In due time I reached the 

 first branches, and resting there for a minute, saw that if 

 the projecting rock was strong enough to carry me, I could 

 pass from the tree to it, and from it to the tree ; and that 

 whether it was secure enough to carry me or not, it would 

 carry more weight than that of a cat. I saw that, but no 

 thought of cats was in my head at the time. I had no 

 thought of any inhabitant of the woods but of the hoody 

 crows, into whose nest I was going to put my hand when I 

 got twenty feet higher. So going on from branch to branch, 

 I easily overcame that distance. The old crows were neither 

 flying about, nor had one of them gone out of the nest, 

 which made me suppose there was nothing in it. I put in 

 my hand, and at the same time reached my head over it to 

 look in : the next moment three young cats, their eyes like 

 lightning, their little tails bristling, and their backs set up, 

 scratched me and sprang towards my face as far as the edge 

 of the nest, spitting and striking out their little paws with 

 all the ferocity of tigers. They were probably five or six 

 weeks old, not more, and were of a greyish dun colour. I did 

 not remain to know more of them. Never but once, when 

 I fell from a tree, did I come down so quickly as I came 

 down that time. I was at the bottom, my hands and 

 clothes almost on fire with the friction of running down, in 



