The Irish Naturalist. 



August, 1905 



nation of the Red Deer, for we have no evidence that the natives ever 

 hunted the wild cat for food. No doubt there are many places in Ire- 

 land named after cats, but may not the places be named from being 

 frequented by the Marten, in some districts known as the Marten Cat ? 

 According to the late F. J. Foot, in an article on the mammals of 

 West Clare, in the Dublin Natural History Society's fournal for April, 

 1862, the Marten is known to the country people by "the name of Cat 

 Kinse, or Cat of the Woods." If I do not mistake, it has been called in 

 parts of Kerry the Hunting Cat. 



Robert Warren. 



Moyview, Balliua. 



[We do not think that any further discussion of this question is called 

 for. Mr. Kane did not "misquote" Mr. Warren's argument; he sum- 

 marized it fairly enough as it seems to us. Mr. Warren argues that if 

 the story be true, Wild Cats should still survive in Co. Donegal, but they 

 do not ; therefore the story is unreliable. Mr. Kane agrees that they 

 should survive, and thinks it possible that they may do so ; therefore he 

 brings forward his story as a support to Dr. Scharff s suggestion that the 

 Irish Wild Cat still lingers on in remote districts. Let us hope that the 

 production of a specimen will set the question at rest. — Bds.]* 



In my note on the discovery of the remains of a Wild Cat in the caves 

 of Co. Clare in the April (p. 79) number of the Irish Naturalist^ I ex- 

 pressed the hope that a few specimens of the species might still exist in 

 some of the more inaccessible districts of the west. I cannot have ex- 

 pressed myself very clearly, for Mr. Warren has evidently misunderstood 

 my note when he wrote his own in the June number with '* Supposed 

 Wild Cat in Ireland." 



I wished to convey to the readers of the /m/^ Naturalist that I had com- 

 pared the cat remains found in the caves with those of domestic cats 

 with those of the European Wild Cat {Felis catus), and with those of the 

 African Wild Cat, and that they agreed with those of the latter. Hence 

 I concluded that the African Wild Cat existed formerly in Ireland. But 

 the African Wild Cat resembles the E^uropean one very closely except 

 that it has a pointed tail and not a bushy one. If, therefore, the African 

 Wild Cat existed at the present moment in Ireland, it is extremely likely 

 that it would be taken by competent naturalists like Mr. Warren for an 

 escaped domestic cat. Even the great naturalists quoted by Mr. 

 Warren have made mistakes in identification some time or other in their 

 lives, and none of them probably dreamt of the possible existence in 

 Ireland of a Wild Cat with a pointed tail. If they had been shown such 

 a one, they would no doubt have put it down as an escaped domestic 

 cat; and so would I have done until my special attention was directed to 

 this subject by means of the cave researches which are being prosecuted 

 with so much energy by Mr. Ussher. 



R. F. ^HARFlf. 



Dublin. 



