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ALMOST HUMAN 
mania, but it is rarely found now outside the island State. For that 
the farmers are truly thankful, for poultry cannot exist where the tiger 
cat reigns. Like the fox, the tiger cat will destroy a whole farm yard 
in a night, just for the sake of sucking the blood, instead of eating the 
bird, so its depredations are frightful. Recently four of these strange 
little things were brought to the gardens. They had been caught in a 
noose trap — which means their feet had got entangled in a noose of 
Cousin to the devil. 
string or rope. Many a tiger cat has been known to bite its foot off 
and leave it in the trap, rather than be caught, just as the dingo and 
the bear will do. 
Native cats are like the tiger cats, only very much smaller. A 
farmer told Mr. Wilkie that he was once so plagued with native cats 
that he made a trap for them out of a disused tank. He placed a plank 
across it, and fastened a bait to a drop string. In the morning he found 
