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



baptism at the place, and wishing to speak proper English, 

 named it ' Wild Cat Gate.' Many of the people were in- 

 quiring where in the world such a place was. No doubt all 

 would have known readily had he said Wulcat Gate or Yett. 

 The name shows the animal was not unknown in this part 

 also." There is likewise a " Wild Cat Gate" in the vicinity 

 of Hawick. 



Mr. Borthwick is unacquainted with the form " Wulcat," 

 but he has been accustomed to hear the natives of Ewesdale 

 and Eskdale "in their broad pronunciation of words, in 

 speaking of Wild Cats, call them ' Woll-gats.' Some fifty 

 years back, in Ewesdale, a Wollgat of great size was killed 

 at Meikledale, and having been stuffed, it was for many 

 years to be seen in the possession of the old laird 

 thereof, by whose people it was destroyed. Our remem- 

 brances of it are that it resembled a very young tiger's cub, 

 such as are occasionally to be seen in menageries." 



Chalmers in his " Caledonia," as evidence of the "ancient 

 stock of the woody districts" of Roxburghshire, adduces 

 "Cat-lee-burn in Southdean, and Cat-cleugh in Liddesdale."* 

 The assumed connection of these with the Celtic cat, war, is 

 not worth consideration. There is also a Catcleugh in the 

 Alston Moor district in Northumberland. 



In North Northumberland, Mr. Selby, writing the "Fauna 

 of Twizell," in 1837, was positive that "the Wild Cat was to 

 be found, not more than twelve years ago, within a distance 

 of three miles."*f" At Spindlestone Hill there is a fantastic- 

 ally shaped crag of whinstone, full of crevices, named the 

 " Cats' Craig," from its being at no very remote period a 

 recognised resort of the native cat. In the parish of Ford, 

 there is a farm originally having the name of Catford, but 

 now changed to Hay Farm,' after one of its occupants, which 

 may have been likewise a refuge for them in the olden time. 

 Chatton may signify the town of cats, situated as it was on 

 the verge of wooded parks where wild animals were reserved 

 for sport. If so, the word has retained the Norman ortho- 

 graphy. The Anglo-Saxon name does not differ from our 

 own, viz., " wild catt." At the foot of Cheviot, above 

 Langleyford, in Harthope Burn, is the " Cats' Loup," a deep 

 gulf cloven by the stream during its passage through the 

 rocks. It probably refers to some notable chase after one 

 of those objects of popular dislike, which none of the present 

 race of shepherds, who are mostly of Scottish origin, can relate. 



* Vol. ii., p. 132. 

 f " Magazine of Zoology and Botany," vol. i., p. 424. 



