BOBCAT CHARACTERISTICS 
north, — apparently the proper habitat of the group, — so 
the bobcats grow smaller toward the southern limits of their 
range, those of the deserts on the border of Mexico, for example, 
being not more than two thirds the bigness of Alaskan ones. 
Similarly these wildcats vary in warmth of color and degree of 
spottedness according to region, in conformity with the law of 
climatic cflect observable generally, that southern animals 
are brighter and more plentifully marked than northern ones of 
the same kind; and that those of a moist region are more highly 
colored than those of an arid country. It is not surprising, then, 
to find that the carly naturalists, getting isolated specimens 
from remotely separated localities, and not seeing the inter- 
grading forms living between, should have regarded them as 
separate species; and ten or a dozen varicties of the bobcat are 
still named by the systemists, whose eyes are much more keen 
for distinctions than for resemblances. 
These bobcats yet linger all over the country wherever 
mountains and woodlands, swamps or deserts, give them a 
refuge, and their habits are much the same as those of wildcats 
elsewhere; but they are steadily diminishing before the persecu- 
tion of farmers and ranchmen, of trappers who covet their 
pelts, and of sportsmen who enjoy outwitting their stratagems 
and witnessing the futile rage when at last, in the face of dogs 
and rifles, the furious little beast fights gamely to the end without 
a chance for life. The literature of sport and pioneering is 
filled with stories of wildcat hunting — none more interesting 
than those related by Audubon as he saw it in the South during 
the second third of the nincteenth century; but at present if one 
wants to enjoy that sort of thing he must go into the far West. 
No better guide can be found than Theodore Roosevelt, who 
has vividly pictured the incidents of such a chase, the method 
of which is much the same as that of puma hunting with 
dogs.'?8 
One more foreign species requires mention, — the caracal, 
L 145 
