NOT FOUND IN IRELAND. 29 



others state that they have seen them ; all I know is 

 that Carte, our highest authority here (curator of the 

 Dublin Society's Museum), has been trying for years 

 to get a specimen of it without success. The ex- 

 amples alluded to are, I imagine, wild tame Cats such 

 as you and I have seen prowling after birds and small 

 vermin in the woods, which do much mischief in this 

 way ; but they are smaller than the Wild Cat and 

 have not the short bushy tail. Your friend will find 

 in Thompson's ' Natural History of Ireland ' all that 

 can be said in favour of the Wild Cat existing in 

 Ireland, but that is not conclusive." 



Sir J. W. Wilde vsrites : — " I have known a great 

 number of Cats in my time — gentle, tame, spiteful, 

 venomous, vicious, cruel, clean, dirty, honest, stealing, 

 &c. ; but I never saw a Wild Cat, certainly not in 

 the west of Ireland ; all Cats I saw there were evi- 

 dently tame ones that had got into the rocks and 

 become wild." 



In another letter he says : — " Mr. La Touche has 

 asked me to communicate with you respecting the 

 existence of the Wild Cat in Ireland. I never met 

 with such an animal, although, both as a sportsman 

 and somewhat of a . naturalist, I have had ample 

 opportunities for observation. There is no purely 

 Irish name for Cat, for the word Catt, or, as it is 

 pronounced, Catta, is a mere corruption of the 

 English term. In the ' Proceedings ' of the Royal 

 Irish Academy for 1860 you will find a lengthened 

 essay of mine upon the unmanufactured animal re- 

 mains then belonging to that institution ; it contains 

 much curious information on the ancient animals of 

 Ireland. That the Domestic Cat has occasionally 

 strayed from home and gone wild is quite true ; and 



