RECORDS ON THE CONTINENT. 31 



EECORDS OF THE WILD CAT ON THE 

 CONTINENT OF EUEOPE. 



On the Continent of Europe, where the Wild Cat 

 was formerly common enough, this animal has now 

 become extremely rare, and in many districts is quite 

 extinct. 



The cause for this cannot be ascribed so much to 

 the hand of man as in this country. Owing to the 

 existence of vast tracts of forests and mountains 

 there is not the same facility nor the same induce- 

 ment in the way of game-preserving for its de- 

 struction, and yet the old genuine species is rapidly 

 diminishing. 



Other causes must be at work. One, no doubt, is 

 the increased cultivation of the land, and with this 

 the increase of population in many districts which 

 but a few years since were barren tracts, almost, if 

 not entirely, uninhabited. Yet in many of these 

 districts, where this animal is on the point of 

 extirpation, the Wolf, the Fox, and most of the 

 smaller Carnivora are still to be found ; some of them, 

 even, are very numerous. 



The increase of population is usually accompanied 

 by the advent of the Domestic Cat, and it appears 

 pretty certain that wherever that foreign race pene- 

 trates the old race diminishes ; it is possible that 

 this circumstance may be one of the chief factors in 

 its eventual total disappearance, a mixed race, the 

 result of the interbreeding of the two races, taking 

 its place. 



In France. — When Buffon wrote his ' Histoire 

 Naturelle ' in 1755, the Wild Cat was not uncommon, 

 and SoNNiNi says that one was killed in the neigh- 



