THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
These characteristics, and their lack of the usual upper pre- 
molar, have led many zodlogists to put them into a separate 
genus (Lynx). They are northern animals, but one species 
ranges throughout Africa. 
The typical and original lynx is that of the far North, — 
Scandinavia, northern Russia, Siberia, Alaska, and Canada, 
—and known to us as the Canada lynx, “catamount,” or 
‘Jucivee”; the last is a shortening of the French Joup cer- 
Canada vier, or “deer wolf” —a term of obscure meaning 
ee perhaps arising from some weird superstition of the 
Middle Ages. In the arctic borders it reaches a great size, 
old males there, it has been said, being sometimes fifty inches 
long, but southerly specimens rarely exceed forty inches, such 
standing about eighteen inches high, with a tail adding about 
five inches. The males differ widely in the length of the 
peculiar neck ruff, and of the black pencils on the ears. In 
color they are grizzled, with a varying tinge of reddish or brown- 
ish showing through from the base of the hairs; this tinge is 
stronger in summer than in winter, and some specimens are 
indistinctly spotted, especially when young. Those of high and 
dry Tibet are noticeably pale, while those of damp and cloudy 
Newfoundland show an excess of dark color, and have even 
been regarded as an isolated species. A kind of lynx inhabiting 
the northern shores and islands of the Mediterranean is redder 
and more spotted than those of the North (as happens in America 
with southern varieties) and is deemed a separate species called 
the pardine lynx. 
The lynx is undoubtedly the most dangerous and destructive beast of 
prey left in Europe. One who reads the admirable biographies of Tschudi 
or Brehm sees that he lives by stratagem. He has not a particularly fine 
sense of smell, nor is his pace rapid. It is his patience, and the skill with 
which he creeps noiselessly up to his victim, that brings him a reward. 
“More patient than the fox, he is less cunning; less hardy than the wolf, 
he leaps better and can resist famine longer. He is not so strong as the 
bear, but keeps a better lookout, and has sharper sight.... Every animal 
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