166 



NOHTH AMERICAN FAUNA 66 



occasionally killed in Baltimore County. He reports that in the 1920's 

 he saw a large bobcat in Day's woods, between the Great and Little 

 Falls of the Gunpowder River. He also cites some notes relative to 

 the bobcat on the Eastern Shore and says that about 2 decades ago 

 (also in the 1920's), a wild animal of the cat family was treed by dogs 

 on the borders of the Nassawango Swamp, near Nassawango Bridge 

 in Worcester County. The animal escaped and Marye doubts that any 

 domestic cat could have done so under the circumstances imposed. 



Mansueti (1950, p. 22) quotes an article from the Baltimore Evening 

 Sun (18 February 1948) entitled "Bobcats Still Here," which says that 

 Thomas Leary, hunter of Beans Cover, Allegany County, trapped a 

 bobcat in 1948 on Evitts Mountain in Allegany County and the news- 

 paper published a photograph of the animal, thus substantiating the 

 capture. 



Mansueti (1950, p. 23) says that John Hamlet, formerly with the 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told him that a few years ago (1945 

 or 1946) a bobcat was known to be roaming the Cypress Swamp region 

 of Calvert County, and Watson Perrygo of the Division of Mammals, 

 U.S. National Museum, tells me that bobcats are presently residing 

 in wild areas on his property near Port Tobacco in Charles County. 



Several interesting specimens of bobcats from Maryland and the 

 District of Columbia are in the collections of the U.S. National Mu- 

 seum. One of these, a young female, was shot along with five others 

 in a swamp near Oxon Hill, Prince Georges County, in 1941 when 

 the swamp was being razed for a housing development. Another (an 

 old female) was found dead in December 1958 on the curb of a down- 

 town Washington Street, not far from Rock Creek Park. The animal 

 was not examined for bullet wounds but probably was shot in the 

 mountains west of Washington and then dumped from an auto onto 

 the Washington Street, although it is remotely possible that it had 

 wandered naturally into downtown Washington via Rock Creek Park. 

 Bailey (1923, p. 121) lists several bobcat records from nearby Virginia. 



The Maryland Conservationist (27(1), pp. 9, 28, Spring 1950) re- 

 cords the capture of a particularly large bobcat in Maryland. On Labor 

 Day of 1949, Frank Wigfield killed the animal on Iron Mountain, 

 about 5 miles east of Cumberland, Allegany County. It weighed 43 

 pounds and measured 53 inches from tip to tip. 



The bobcat is shy and retiring, and primarily solitary in its habits. 

 It is almost entirely nocturnal and is seldom abroad in daylight. Gen- 

 erally, it seeks shelter under shrubs or in rock crevices, but some- 

 times it dens in hollows trees, stumps, or logs. The den is lined with 

 grasses, leaves, moss, and other vegetation, which are scraped and 

 scratched into a nest. 



