THE CAT TRIBE ST 
It is, however, much stronger than the tame 
cats, with which it interbreeds freely. In the 
Colony it is often difficult to keep male tame 
cats, for the wild Kaffir cats come down and 
fight them in the breeding-season. The 
Egyptian cat is really the same animal, slightly 
modified by climate. A very distinct species 
is the JuNGcLE-caT, ranging from India, 
“through Baluchistan, Syria, and East Africa, 
and called in Hindustani the Cuaus. The 
European striped wild cat extends to the 
Photo by A, 8. Rudland & Sons Himalaya, where the range of the lion- 
KAFFIR CAT coloured, yellow-eyed chaus begins. The 
The common wild cat of South Africa. It will interbreed with 
i in a chaus has a few black bars inside the legs, 
which vary in different regions. The Indian 
chaus has only one distinctly marked; the Kaffir cat has four or five. The EcypTiaAN FETTERED 
Car has been said to be the origin of the domestic and sacred cats of Egypt. A male chaus is 
most formidable when * cornered.” General Hamilton chased one, which had prowled into the 
cantonments on-the lookout for fowls, into a fence. « After a long time I spied the cat squatting 
in a hedge,” he writes, “and called for the dogs. When they came, I knelt down and began 
clapping my hands and cheering them on. The cat suddenly made a clean spring at my face. 
I had just time to catch it as one would a cricket-ball, and, giving its ribs a strong squeeze, threw 
it to the dogs ; but not before it had made its teeth meet in my arm just above the wrist. For some 
weeks | had to carry my arm in a sling, and I shall carry the marks of the bite to my grave.” 
The chaus, as will be seen from the above, wanders boldly down into the outskirts of large 
towns, cantonments, and bungalows, on the lookout for chickens and pigeons. Its favourite plan 
is to lie up at dawn in some piece of thick cover near to where the poultry wander out to scratch, 
feed, and bask. It then pounces on the nearest unhappy hen and rushes off with it into cover. 
An acquaintance of the writer once had a number of fine Indian game fowl, of which he was not 
a little proud. He noticed that one was missing every morning for three days, and, not being 
able to discover the robber, shut them up in a hen-house. Next morning he heard a great com- 
motion outside, and one of his bearers came running in to say that a leopard was in the hen- 
house. As this was only built of 
bamboo or some such light material, it 
did not seem probable that a leopard 
would stay there. Getting his rifle, he 
went out into the compound, and cau- 
tiously approached the hen-house, in 
which the fowls were still making loud 
protests and cries of alarm. The door 
was shut; but some creature—certainly 
not a leopard—might have squeezed in 
through the small entrance used by the 
hens. He opened the door, and saw at 
the back of the hen-house a chaus 
sitting, with all its fur on end, looking 
almost as large as a small leopard. On 
the floor was one dead fowl. The 
impudent jungle-cat rushed for the door, 
Photo by A. 8. Rudland & Sons 
AFRICAN CHAUS, OR JUNGLE-CAT 
but had the coolness to seize the hen The chaus is the Indian and African equivalent of our wild cat. It it 
equally strong and savage 
