RECORDS IN ENOLAND AND WALES. 17 



three years previously he printed a translation by 

 Thomas Buller of ' Bartholomseus de Proprietatibus 

 Rerum,' in which the Wild Cut is likened to a Leo- 

 pard with a great mouth, sharp teeth, a cruel heart, 

 dwelleth in woods, and lives on small wild beasts, as 

 Conies and Hares. 



The increased cultivation of the land, with the 

 gradual thinning of the forests and woodlands, drove 

 the Wild Cat from its more southern haunts ; but it 

 must have been still plentiful in the midland and 

 northern counties during the 16th, 17th, and part of 

 the 18th centuries. Shakespeare, a keen observer of 

 all things in nature, writing in 1593, refers, in his 

 play of " The Merchant of Venice," to the habits of 

 the Wild Cat :— 



" The patch is kind enough ; but a huge feeder. 

 Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day 

 More than the wild cat." 



And, again, in " The Taming of The Shrew," written 

 in 1606, he makes Petruchio say to Katharine : 



" Thou must be married to no man but me : 

 For I am he, am born to tame you, Kate ; 

 And bring you from a wild cat to a Kate 

 Conformable, as other household Kates." 



Also in Macbeth, Act iv. : 



" Thrice the briudcd cat hath mew'd." 



A Dr. William Salmon, who wrote a curious book 

 called the ' Compleat English Physician, or The 

 Druggist's Shop opened,' in 1693, mentions the Wild 

 Cat, of which he says "there are three kinds, the 

 Tame Cat, the Wild Wood Cat, and the Cat of the 

 Mountain, all of which are of one nature, and agree 

 much in one shape except as to their magnitude. 



c 



