20 THE WILD CAT OF ETJROPE. 



Reports of the early part of the 19th century show 

 a great diminution in the number of Wild Cats, even 

 in the most northern counties, and it is probable that 

 in the midlands and in the south, east, and west it 

 had become practically extinct. 



The Rev. W. Bingley, in his ' Memoirs of British 

 Quadrupeds,' 1809, states that a century ago Wild 

 Cats were to be found in the woods of Northampton- 

 shire, but now they are all destroyed. 



H. Scott, 'British Field Sports,' 1818, writes: — 

 " As to the Wild Cat, a chase of some name in 

 ancient records, the breed seems now to be extinct 

 in our country, not so much belike, as one being 

 kept even in Cheshire, to teach people how to grin." 

 And W. D. EoEBUCK, in the ' Vertebrate Fauna of 

 Yorkshire,' states that the Hambledon Hills were 

 the final refuge of this animal in Yorkshire, and that 

 the last example was killed by Mr. John Harrison at 

 his farm at Murton, near Hawnby, in the winter 

 of 1840. He also says that the evidence of the 

 former existence of the Wild Cat in South Yorkshire 

 is confined to entries in the Churchwardens' accounts 

 at Ecclesfield of sums paid in 1589 and 1626 for 

 the destruction of Wylde Cats, and to a legend of 

 doubtful origin of an encounter, fatal to both, between 

 a Wild Cat and a man of the family of Cresacre 

 at Burnborough. 



In Northumberland the Wild Cat was supposed to 

 have lingered as late as 1853, the last being killed by 

 Lord Ravensworth at Eslington. 



The different reports in the ' Zoologist ' and else- 

 where of a Wild Cat being killed near Godalming in 

 1849, in Devonshire in 1865, in Cumberland in 

 1871, in Hampshire, near Ringwood, in 1875, in 



