THE WILD CAT 



(Felis catus) 



SAVAGE as a wild cat is a proverbial expression ; and although in attitudes of 

 repose, like the one selected for the coloured Plate, the ferocity of look may 



temporarily disappear, there are few animals fiercer or more bloodthirsty 

 than Pelts cuius. Indeed, a wild cat brought to bay or caught in a trap is a perfect 

 fiend incarnate. 



The wild cat and the lynx are the only feline Carnivora indigenous at the 

 present day to central and northern Europe ; and of these two the lynx has long 

 since disappeared from the British Isles, and has become very scarce throughout the 

 greater part of the Continent, but is still common in Scandinavia and Russia. The 

 wild cat, on the other hand, survives in most European countries, and is far from 

 uncommon in the Alps and many parts of France and Germany, although in Great 

 Britain its sole remaining refuges are among the highlands of Scotland, and even 

 there it has been suggested that many of the so-called wild cats are hybrids, or 

 domesticated cats run wild. Eastward, the range of the wild cat extends at least as 

 far as the Altai, where its representative has a larger and more woolly coat than the 

 typical western race. 



In Africa the place of the European wild cat is taken by a closely allied 

 but somewhat less strongly striped species known as Pelts ocreala, of which the 

 northern race was protected and held sacred by the ancient Egyptians in Bubastis 

 and other cities. That the European and the African wild cats have given rise to 

 the domesticated cats of the greater part of the Old World may be considered certain, 

 although there is some difference of opinion as to the respective shares taken by the 

 two wild species in the production of the tame breeds. Among the ordinary house- 

 cats of western Europe, the type coming nearest to the wild ancestor is the one 

 with black transverse stripes on a grey ground. The true tabby, on the other 

 hand, that is to say the type in which the dark markings take the form of broad 

 longitudinal or obliquely longitudinal bands arrayed in a ring-like or spiral manner 

 on the flanks, is unlike either of the two wild cats, and it has been suggested that 

 it may have had a totally distinct ancestry. 



By choice the wild cat, which for most of the year lives alone, frequents 

 large, thick, and sequestered pine-forests, where it selects rocky situations as 

 affording the best hiding-places. In addition to clefts in the rocks, it chooses, 

 however, for its lair the burrows of the fox or the badger, or holes in large tree- 

 trunks, while it will sometimes make its abode in thick bushes. 



In regard to food, the wild cat preys chiefly upon rats, mice, and small birds, 



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