March 21, 1896.J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
283 
your wife, who listens patiently and looks very much inter- 
ested while you are describing how you captured that two- 
pounder last spring. When you retire to rest, your head 
is full of plans for an outing and your dreams are all on 
the same strain. 
This sort of thing is kept up until finally you make up 
your mind that trout will bite, and ob! how you rush 
through that day's work to get the time for the purchase 
of some of the necessaries that have been left to the last. 
That night you pack up everything for the trip and tell 
your wife to leave a cold lunch for you to get in the morn- 
ing. When all is ready you take the alarm clock to your 
room and set it for 2:30 A. M. 
You go to bed fully expecting to fall asleep at once, 
although it is only 9:30; but your brain is too full of eager 
expectations for immediate slumber and when you finally 
drop off it seems but a minute till you hear that cussed 
alarm going as if possessed of a demon. 
Perhaps I will tell the story of that trip some time in the 
future, but as I do not feel in the mood for writing fiction 
it must be postponed. Cruiser. 
Forest Fires or Forest Police? 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A recent editorial in Forest and Stream which deals 
with the disappearance of our game in its relation to the 
occupancy of lands but lately of use solely or largely for 
the maintenance or pursuit of wild creatureB for such 
sport as they might afford, and now devoted to the various 
uses of civilization, and as a consequence to the legitimate 
support and maintenance of civilized man, is in strict ac- 
cordance with my views upon this subject. I believe that 
Sir John Lubbock estimates the breadth of land required 
to maintain an individual savage who lives by hunting 
atjaot less than fifty square miles. I have lived where I 
rarely tasted meat except tha.t which fell to my gun, and 
I well remember a remark of my wife, that in our house- 
keeping "a gun was as necessary as a cooking stove." 
There is little game now in all that region, but there is 
plenty of wheat, corn and cattle, and the present occu- 
pants of the land are far more prosperous than were those 
who hunted in the long ago, while their children have 
opportunities for advancement of which in the old days 
their parents never dreamed. 
This is legitimate and only what was looked for by 
thoughtful men. 
That which most annoys me is not the diminution of 
our supplies of game and fish so much as the reckless — 
often wanton — waste and destruction which follow in the 
wake of the settler and leave but desolation in their track; 
and the apathy of the people and their chosen representa- 
tives, who, with comparatively few exceptions, regard 
with indifference such matters as forest fires, the pollu- 
tion of streams, and the wanton and unlawful destruction 
of fish and game which constantly takes place under the 
eyes of those who live in the rural districts. 
When I cruised northward to the Straits of Mackinaw 
last summer our boat was never out of sight of forest 
fires, while the smoke was sometimes so thick on Lake 
Michigan that we had to run by compass at noon. 
The cost to the State of Michigan of these fires would 
have maintained for years a large body of forest police, 
who might, under suitable laws, have done very much to 
save both timber and game. Unless our people take warn- 
ing in time their grandchildren, like the descendants of 
the old Greeks, will perhaps be found hunting for stray 
bushes on barren slopes, which in the days of their an- 
cestors were forest-clad or otherwise productive. If the 
next Legislature will show a little common business sense 
and leave at home some of their political tricks they may 
earn the gratitude of the next generation by looking after 
these matters. Kelpie. 
THE WILDCATS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
. Representatives of the cat tribe, the great family 
known to naturalists as the Felidce, occur almost all over 
the habitable globe. Australia and the circumpolar 
regions are the only territories of considerable extent 
where wildcats are unknown. Of course, many of the 
smaller islands are free from their presence. 
In fact, it may be said that two single species of cats 
divide the world between them, neither of them encroach- 
ing upon the other. These are the leopard of the Eastern 
Hemisphere and the panther of the Western. The former 
is found almost all over Africa and Asia, and at one time 
ranged throughout Europe, even to Scandinavia. In the 
New World the habitat of the panther extends from 
middle Patagonia through every part of South America, 
Central America and Mexico, all over the United States 
where not driven away by human settlement, and as far 
north as lower British Columbia and southern Canada. 
It inhabits alike the prairie and the forest, the mountain 
and the plain. 
America must perforce yield the palm to Asia and 
Africa in the possession of the fiercest and most lordly of 
the cat tribe, the tiger and the linn. Yet the great cats 
of America, the jaguar and the panther, are not far be- 
hind these in size, activity and strength. 
In an artificial classification of these quadrupeds we 
recognize three groups: the unspotted cats, the spotted 
cats and the lynxes. The first named, which are chiefly 
terrestrial in their habits, rank as the most highly organ- 
ized of these groups from the fact that their young are 
always spotted or striped, and lose these markings before 
they reach the adult stage. This being the case, we may 
place at the head of American cats the panther, to whose 
immense range we have already referred. His superior 
size gives him an additional title to the first place on the 
list. This interesting quadruped, covering as he does so 
extensive a range, naturally rejoices in a variety of titles 
— panther, puma, cougar, Eocky Mountain lion, Cali- 
fornia lion — to say nothing of such local names as cata- 
mount and "painter." Naturalists the world over know, 
him as Felis concolor. 
This strong-limbed, muscular animal, well balanced in 
every part of his organism, if possessed of the undaunted 
ferocity of the Bengal tiger, might almost take rank by 
the side of that dreaded man-eater. The panther has 
been known to spring 20ft. into the air as an every-day 
performance in order to surmount the perpendicular face 
of a cliff and reach hig cavern home, A young bull or a 
half-grown colt 'sometimes falls a prey to his vigorous 
assaults. 
But note the contrast when he has a man to face. This 
huge, tawny cat, to his shame be it said, is an arrant 
coward, driven to flight or to the refuge of a tree before 
the barkings of an unworthy cur, and shot from his 
perch by the hunter with as little show of resistance as if 
he were a squirrel or an opossum. He has "no stomach 
for a fight," and is only and occasionally courageous 
when the possession of a tempting piece of flesh so calls 
into play the greedy cat nature as to embolden him to 
face and repulse a pack of hounds until their masters 
appear upon the scene. 
Annals of the early days of frontier and forest fife, 
chiefly in our Western country, furnish occasional in- 
stances of attacks of the panther upon man, but the 
wily brute soon learned the meaning of the rifle crack, 
even if he had not already been taught to dread the sting 
of the Indian arrow. 
Such is his .cowardice that very few of the stories told 
of his prowess in confronting man can be regarded as 
authentic. We recall one such instance in the experience 
of a hunter in what was then the Territory of Washing- 
ton. Returning alone through a forest with a haunch of 
venison on his shoulder, he was set upon by a "California 
lion," doubtless attracted by the meat, and in the struggle 
that followed the man was so terribly lacerated that he 
soon died. 
Another instance in point was related to the writer by 
an old and trustworthy hunter in the Blue Ridge of south- 
western North Carolina. About fifty years ago, when 
that now sparsely settled region was literally a howling 
wilderness abounding in game, large and small, a panther 
sprang from a tree upon the stooping form of an Indian 
engaged in digging ginseng roots. After a desperate 
fight, in which he was fearfully lacerated, the Indian 
succeeded in killing the panther with his knife. But such 
instances, as already stated, are exceedingly rare. 
On our southwestern prairies, as well as on the South 
American pampas, the panther is sometimes captured 
with the lasso. The cowboy or ranchman, seeing a "big 
cat" straying at a distance from the brush, soon brings his 
fleet pony within the desired range, and the choking rope- 
noose ends the chapter. 
The cry of the panther may be described as a long- 
drawn, shrill, whining scream, often losing the whine in 
its fierceness. It is cut into sections, so to speak, but 
lacks the screech-owl tremulousness of the cry of the 
smaller cats. It is often blood-curdling when heard in 
the lonely forest, or when it breaks upon the stillness of 
night. 
There are but two other species of "unspotted cats" in 
North America, the yaguarundi (Felis yaguarundi) and 
the eyra (Felis eyra). The former inhabits the tierra 
caliente, the low hot country of Mexico and Central 
America, and I have seen no authentic account of its 
presence north of the Rio Grande. It measures lOin. 
high at the shoulder, 2ft. in length of body and 18in. in 
length of tail. 
The eyra has much the same range as the yaguarundi, 
but has occasionally been seen and killed in Texas, where 
it is known as "the weasel cat," from its resemblance 
to the weasel when seen at a distance. I once saw a full- 
grown specimen of this cat in the live oak thickets of 
Padre Island on the Texas coast, but I failed to shoot it. 
It has also been seen in New Mexico. 
The adult eyra is 18 to 20in. long in body, its 
tail is 10 to 12in. long, while its height at the shoulder 
is only 7in,, and its front legs are almost abnormally 
short in comparison with the hind limbs. It varies in 
color from a reddish yellow to a bright rufous red, 
often mimicking the color of the clay of the numerous 
gullies (or arroyos) which everywhere cut the prairie 
along the coast. While its length is considerably greater, 
its height is but little above that of the domestic cat; 
hence, like the yaguarundi, it is by no means a formidable 
beast. 
We come now to consider the spotted cats, which, 
though more attractive in respect to color, cannot claim 
superior beauty of form or grace of movement. The un- 
spotted cats, as we have already stated, are chiefly terres- 
trial in their habits, although they sometimes betake 
themselves to the friendly branches of a tree, either to 
escape their one enemy, man, and his minion, the dog, or 
the better to lie in wait for and spring upon their prey. 
The spotted cats, on the other hand, are essentially 
arboreal in haunt and habit, resting by day among the 
sheltering leaves of forest trees, ready to spring upon any 
unwary deer, antelope, calf, hog or hare that may pass 
beneath. 
The largest of American spotted cats is the famous 
jaguar (Felis onca), the most formidable of the New 
World Felidce by reason of its courage and ferocity. This 
great cat, almost the counterpart of the leopard of the 
Old World, is fully as long in body as the panther and 4 
to 5in. lower at the shoulder. His feet and limbs are 
nearly as heavy, while his head is larger and his ears 
wider apart. His habitat is far more limited than that of 
the panther, ranging through Brazil, along the lower 
western slopes of the Andes, through the forests of the 
Amazon and the Orinoco, the wooded sections of Colombia 
and Central America, and along the Gulf Coast of Mexico 
and Texas, as far northeast, at one time, as the bayous of 
southern Louisiana. The jaguar is still an occasional in- 
habitant of southern Texas, though very rarely seen or 
heard. I have seen the skins of very large tawny and 
black-spotted specimens that had been shot along the line 
of railroad between Laredo and Corpus Christi. 
Report having been made to me of a jaguar as occa- 
sionally seen in the great stretch of live oak near the 
Aransas, a small river not far north of the Nueces, I pro- 
cured a pack of large hounds used to treeing wildcats and 
the like, supposing that they would also be available for 
my present purpose. As soon as we reached the locality 
named we killed a hog and exposed its carcass. The 
jaguar found the bait over night and devoured the throat 
and parts of the head. When, however, we put the dogs 
on the scent they refused to follow, bristling up, whining 
and showing other signs of fear. This had been predicted 
by my guide, who confirmed the statement of other hunt- 
erB to the effect that the jaguar, unlike the panther, 
stands in no fear of dogs, but springs upon them and tries 
to drag them away, often with success. Our dogs prov- 
ing useless for our purpose, we finally gave up our pursuit 
of the jaguar. 
Of the spotted cats, the next in size to the jaguar is the 
cpelot (FeMs pardulis), a beautifully spotted and somewhat 
banded species, well known in the sections it inhabits. It 
is a little smaller than the average setter dog, lower in 
stature, but nearly as long. It measures 2ft. 8in. in lengt h 
of body, and 14in. in length of tail. Its shoulder height is 
16in., and its heavily moulded figure gives the impres- 
sion of great muscular power. The head is broad and full. 
The name leopa,rd cat, popularly given to this animal, 
might well be changed to tiger cat, because its velvety 
spots are often lengthened into bands or stripes. Other- 
wise it is a miniature jaguar, except that its ground color 
is white, with a very little tawny in most specimens. 
The ocelot preys upon birds, hares, lambs, young calves, 
antelopes and fawns, Its ability to hold and kill a full- 
grown deer is not well proved. It seldom leaves the 
shelter of bushes and trees except to cross prairies from 
grove to grove. The surest way to capture this cat is to 
explore the groves carefully, far and wide. Patient and 
thorough search will usually be rewarded by finding an 
ocelot extended on a horizontal limb of a tree, taking his 
siesta. He will not show excessive alarm at being dis- 
covered, but will sit upright, watching you closely and 
showing his teeth if you approach too near. At the first 
chance he will spring to the ground and make off at a 
regular cat gallop. 
If, however, you do not intend to lose him, one bullet 
through his head as he. sits looking at you will make him 
your property. And here, by the way, we may remind 
our sportsman readers that the head of a cat, and not the 
heart, should always be the point of aim. A bullet through 
the brain means instant death, but a cat shot through the 
heart or lungs, though of course mortally wounded, is 
often a very dangerous animal for a few moments at 
least. In the desperation of his last struggle he may hurl 
himself upon you, and a few seconds may suffice for a 
lacerated arm or face. 
While in lower Texas a story was told me on good 
authority of a Mexican shepherd who, on returning to 
his hut one night and healing the piteous bleating of a 
hurt lamb he had left within, determined to kill the in- 
truder, which in the darkness he mistook for a coyote. 
As the beast dashed for the door the Mexican, used to 
such encounters, made a grab for it and found he had 
caught a tartar in the shape of a large ocelot. He had 
grasped it by the throat, and had it been a wolf he 
would soon have choked it to death. But the power- 
ful cat used its claws at once, and the Mexican, seeing 
his mistake, tried to relinquish his hold. He found that 
it took two to make a bargain, for the ocelot clung to 
him and savagely tore his arm and hand. The man at 
length pinned the cat to the ground, and then, watch- 
ing his opportunity, seized it by the hindleg, swung it 
free from him and over his head, and brought it down 
with all its 301bs. with such force as to stun it, where- 
upon he killed it with his knife. He at once set out 
for the nearest town, twenty miles away, and arrived 
there only to find that his left arm had to be amputated 
at the elbow. 
The cry of the jaguar is a rough, deep-voiced roar, re- 
sembling that of the lion, but with less volume of sound. 
When heard at a distance it is not unlike the braying of 
a mule, without the rising wheeze at the end of each n ote. 
The ocelot's cry is more like the panther's than the 
jaguar's, and heard at night, half a mile away, recalls the 
weird, mournful cry of some great night bird of the owl 
or heron tribe. 
The only remaining spotted cat of North America is the 
margay (Felis tigrina), an animal similar to the ocelot in 
its markings and general proportions, but much less in 
size. The margay averages 18in. in length of body, 8in. 
in length of tail, and 8 or lOin. in height at the shoulder. 
In some sections its size is considerably under these figures 
— in fact, hardly exceeding a large house cat. There is 
good reason to assume that this wiry, agile little animal 
inhabits the section just north of the Rio Grande, known 
as the ' 'Bad Lands," abounding in cactus and seamed with 
arroyos. While there I heard many accounts of shooting 
a very small spotted cat; and I observed that the natives 
habitually spoke of three kinds, as the big leopard-cat, the 
small leopard-cat, and the little spotted cat. By these 
names they plainly designated the jaguar, the ocelot and 
the margay. 
Last of all we come to speak briefly of the lynxes, which 
in popular parlance are designated as the wildcats proper, 
though they depart more widely from the true Felis type 
than those previously named. The tufted ear, the large 
limb, the furry foot, and the bob-tail, are the character- 
istics of the lynx group. Naturalists are as yet divided 
upon the question of making Lynx a separate genus from 
Felis. 
The bay lynx has two well-marked varieties, the Felis 
rufus and Felis rufus maculatus. The typical species is 
the common wildcat of the temperate regions of the 
United States, and the variety is the spotted lynx of the 
Southwest, the Gulf Coast and occasionally of Florida. 
These varieties constantly interbreed, and the differ- 
ences are but superficially climatic. The broad foot and 
long hair are less noticeable in the Southern than in the 
Northern lynxes, which last approximate the larger and 
rougher coated Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). This 
quadruped stands about as high and long as a setter dog, 
while the common wildcat (Felis rufus) averages 4 or 5in. 
shorter and 2 or Sin. lower, running down in some sec- 
tions of the southern Alleghanies to the size of a beagle 
hound. 
All the lynxes are less cowardly than the other cats. A 
lynx will take to a tree even when pursued by a small 
dog, and will do all in his power to elude the pursuit of 
man. But he will show fight when pressed to the wall 
or if surprised at a meal. The cry of the common lynx, 
or wildcat, is described as a shrill, long-drawn scream, 
somewhat tremulous in its cadences like the note of the 
screech owl. S. F. A. 
Starlings in America. 
New Rochelle, N, Y., March 1. — The flock of starlings 
that I wrote about last year are still flourishing in Pelham 
Bay Park, and have increased from about 50 to over 200 
birds. I have seen them often, but have not been able to 
obtain any specimens, as they are very wild, and what 
seems strange to me iB that, though the park is as wild 
and uncultivated as the rest of the country near New 
Rochelle, I have never seen them anywhere else. I have 
not been able to find where they nest yet, but I hope to do 
so this spring. 
Yesterday I heard the song of the song sparrow for the 
first time, and as I write an early robin is hunting dili- 
gently for food on.the lawn, Edwin S. Haines, 
