62 



The Living Animals of the World 



B^l pcniiUslon of Percy Leigh Peiuhcrton, E'^q. 



SCOTCH 1YILD CATS. 



These wild cats, the property of Mr. P. Leigh reniberton, though regularly fed and well treated, show their natural bad-temper in their faces. 



before the capture of tlie.se wild cats another family were trapped in Aberdeenshire and 

 brought to the Zoological Gardens. Four kittens, beautiful little savages, with bright green 

 eyes, and uninjured, were safely taken to Regent's Park. But the quarters given them were 

 \ery small and cold, and they all died. Two other full-grown wild cats brought there a few 

 years earlier were so dreadfully injured by the abominable steel traps in which they were 

 caught that they botli died of blood-poisoning. 



The real wild cats differ in their markings on the body, some being more clearly striped, 

 while others are only brindled. But they are all alike in the squareness and thickness of 

 head and body, and in the short tail, ringed with black, and growing larger at the tip>, which 

 ends off like a shaving-brush. 



It may well be asked. Which of the many species of wild cats mentioned above is the 

 ancestor of our domestic cats ? Probably different sp)ecies in different countries. The African 

 Kaffir cat, the Indian leojiard-cat, the rusty-spotted cat of India, and the European wild cat 

 all breed with tame cats. It is therefore probable that the spotted, striped, and brindled 

 varieties of tame cats are descended from wild species which had those markings. The 

 so-called red tame cats are doubtless descended from the tiger-coloured wild cats. But it is a 

 curious fact that, though the spotted grey-tabb}' wild varieties are the least common, that colour 

 is most frequent in the tame species. 



THE LYNXES. 



In the Lynxes we seem to bave a less spjecially cat-like form. They are short-tailed, high 

 in the leg, and broad-faced. Less active than the leopards and tiger-cats, and able to live 

 either in very hot or very cold countries, they are found from the Persian deserts to the far 

 north of Siberia and Canada. 



The Caracal is a southern, hot-country lynx. It has a longer tail than the others, but 

 the same tufted ears. It seems a link between the lynxes and the jungle-cats. It is found 

 in India, Palestine, Persia, and IMesopotamia. In India it was trained, like the cheeta, to 



