Chapter LII. 



WILD CATS. 



In the good old days of China sport, that is to say 

 during the years immediately succeeding the desolating 

 passage of the rebels of Great Peace — the Tai-pings — across 

 the country, and the hardly less destructive visits of their 

 foes, the Imperialists, when large tracts even in thickly 

 peopled Kiangsu had gone back to jungle, and wild life had 

 become as common as human life had been, there was rarely 

 an extended shooting trip which did not include in its bag 

 one or more wild cats. {Vide "With Boat and Gun," pp. 234-6) 

 Felis Sinensis, the common wild cat of China, varies con- 

 siderably both in colour and size. Specimens have been 

 secured but little larger than a large domestic cat, whilst 

 others attain to the proportions of a small leopard almost. 

 There is a very weasel-like look about some of them. The 

 silky rotundity of the pet of the hearth yields to a "tucked 

 up" wiry-looking, leggy appearance well adapted to many 

 aspects of tree life, or, if colour is concerned as well as shape, 

 to an easy and undetected passage through dry undergrowth. 

 Doubtless the wild cat of China uses its natural advantages 

 in both these ways. He is alert enough to spring on a 

 rising pheasant, he sometimes has weight enough to secure 

 a fawn, possibly even, with assistance, the smaller adult 

 local deer, Hydropotes inermis. Mr. Wade says of the wild 

 cats in the immediate neighbourhood, "There is only one 

 true wild-cat with us {Felis Bengalensis), in size equal to a 

 large domestic cat but very slim in the body." What has 

 been said above relates to the specimens shown in the 

 Shanghai Museum under the name given. Felis Bengalensis 

 varies in length from 2 ft. to 2 ft. 2 in. the length of tail 

 being about equal to that of body. Its ground colour varies 

 according to climate, soil, etc. from a reddish tint to grey, 

 and again from grey to tawny, with spots, also varying con- 

 siderably in depth of colour from tawny through brown to 

 a chocolate almost black. This cat is known probably all over 

 the central and southern parts of China, possibly also farther 

 north. It is familiar to western naturalists as the " Leopard- 

 cat "' rather from its spots than from its size. 



