BECOnnS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. ]9 



and medicinal for several aches and pains in the bones 

 and joints ; also her grease is very good for sinews 

 that are shrunk." 



According to the Rev. J. Moeton (' History of the 

 County of Northampton ') the Wild Cat was still to 

 be found in that county as late as 1712. He says : — 

 " We now meet with them, though more rarely, since 

 the woods have been thinned. They here are called 

 ' Birdies,' and those which are found in Whittlewood 

 Forest (Whittlewood lies between Towcester, Stoney 

 Stratford, and Buckingham) are of very large size, 

 and in their wailing noise and other properties they 

 agree with our domestic Cats, but their skin seems 

 to be tanned as it were with the sun and weather." 



In the county of Cumberland, when Daniel Defoe 

 made his tour through Great Britain, 1710, Wild 

 Cats, according to his account, were abundant : he 

 made an excursion in his journey through Cumber- 

 land to Christenbury Craig, and came upon some 

 caves amongst the rocks where the moss-troopers 

 formerly retreated for security, and where others had 

 at times taken up their abode ; but at present, he 

 says, "it has no inhabitants but Wild Cats, of which 

 there are many, the largest I ever saw." H. A. Mac- 

 PHEBSON, in the prefatory notice on the destruction of 

 wild animals, in his ' Vertebrate Fauna of Lakeland,' 

 gives a list of Wild Cats killed between 1706 and 

 1755 in the parishes of Martindale and Barton, 

 which amounted to fifty. By 1790 the number had 

 considerably diminished, for Dr. John Hetsiiam, in 

 Hutchinson's ' History of Cumberland,' 1794, states 

 that " very few Wild Cats are now to be met with in 

 any of our woods, except those bordering on the 

 lakes, and even there they are far from numerous." 



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