
132 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[JULY 27, 1907. 

The furthest in the woods I remember knowing 
of one being found was near Nicatowis Lake, 
where one ate the haunch of a dead deer. Wild- 
cats often get into sheds or barns in the night 
to kill poultry, and it is not uncommon for them 
to be killed in large towns. They are mean, 
sneaking animals, seldom being seen except 
when .dogs find them, and while they live 
chiefly upon rabbits they also kill a great many 
hens for farmers and kill more or less sheep and 
deer. They are quite strong, as I have known 
one to drag a full grown shee ep a short ‘distance. 
It is extremely rare for one to be seen, although 
they are never far from people. Last winter I 
trapped one within forty rods of a house where 
they keep a dog; another within a hundred rods, 
and another close to the Bar Harbor railroad 
track. A road which teams were going on ran 
within ten rods of where two. were trapped. 
There were. others that I heard of in other parts 
of the town, and yet I have not heard of one 
being seen in the town for several years. I 
have had at least twenty times the chances to 
see one that I ever had to see a lynx, and yet 
I never saw but one out of a trap. They. vary 
in number different years, but usually every year 
ee are a few which stay right among the farm 
hous 
I am writing of this vicinity, but this is prob- 
ably true of all parts of the State where they 
are found at all.. I know one man who saw 
three eating on a deer which they had killed, but 
the men who ever saw more than one, except 
when dogs were used, are very few. Nearly 
fifty years ago they were more abundant than I 
have ever known since. Ten were taken within 
a few miles square, of which I took three. I 
was in the woods nearly every day except Sun- 
days, looking after men working for us, and 
traveling all the time, but I never saw one; yet 
several times they came to my men and would 
not leave the roads, but were killed with clubs 
and axes. They seemed half starved. They 
were reported as cross and growling, but in no 
case ever attempted to fight, and one, after sit- 
ting in the road till he stopped a double horse 
team, when a man approached him with a club, 
stuck his head into the snow under a log and 
allowed the man to kill him. I thave never 
known any case where one ever attempted to 
jump toward a man or ever tried to follow a 
human being. They are shyer than a house cat, 
woods catch sight of house 
wild. 
localities 
as we often in the 
cats that have run 
wildcats must be 
Although in many 
on the same ground as lynxes, I have never 
seen any sign of their hybridizing. They usually 
leave nothing of 
they swallow the 
caught by creeping to 
leave the feet of rabbits, but 
partridges except feathers, as 
legs and feet. Both are 
them. 
Like the lynx, 
and sheep. My 
wildeats bite the throat of deer 
y father once saw thirteen sheep 
hauled in on a sled, all killed in one night by 
wildcats, and all had their throats bitten. 
[ have always heard that when treed lynx will 

stay on the tree they first climbed, but a wild- 
cat usually walks out on a limb and jumps to 
another tree, and so on until quite aways from 
where he treed; he then jumps down and runs, 
and the dog cannot find the track until the 
hunter comes up, so that the chase is usually 
a long one. I remember a hunter bringing me 
four skins. All the cats were started on differ- 
ent days from the same swamp and all ran from 
six to ten miles before being shot. 
Like the lynx, wildcats are easily trapped, and 
when trapped make little attempt to escape, much 
less than an otter or raccoon of less weight 
would make. Though they are always growling 
they make no fight when trapped. It has never 
been my privilege to hear one make any noise 
when out of a trap, but they are reported as 
making about the same noises as lynx. I have 
known four young to be found and_ should 
judge that to be about the normal number of 
young. While the man who found them went 
to get his gun the mother came and removed 
three of the kittens. 
As neither lynx nor wildcats weigh much more 
than twice as much as a house cat, and it is 
@xtremely rare to find one which weighs three 
times as much, it has always been a mystery to 
-fore 
low 
me why any man should be afraid of either, es- 
pecially as I can find no reliable instance of 
either ever injuring a man. 
Careless Reading. 
I find that although in my article on lynx and 
_ wildcat I tried to make my statements plain, so 
that there need be no mistake as to my meaning, 
several of your readers have made criticisms on 
what I never wrote or thought of writing. I 
stand by all I write, but not for what careless 
readers think wrote. 
In your issue of July 13 Mr. E. A. Samuels 
takes issue with our wildcats not usually being 
over twenty miles from salt water and goes on 
at length to prove what every one who can read 
ought to know, that they are found all. over the 
United States. If Mr. Samuels had read care- 
fully he’ would have seen that I wrote: “With 
us the lynx is rarely found near settlements or 
near the seashore, while the wildcat is rarely 
found twenty miles from salt water.’ When I 
wrote “with us” I supposed that any reader 
would understand that it referred to Maine, as 
I ‘am a Maine man and never pretend to write 
of animals in other States. In my many -years 
as a fur buyer I have seen skins from about all 
the States in the Union, and I learned to read 
several years ago. 
As to my being in error about the lynx foot. 
I have probably seen a hundred lynx feet where 
Mr. Samuels ever saw one, as they used to come 
in mostly with the paws on. I am _ perfectly 
aware that there is a pad on the foot, but so 
covered with hair that I did not think it .worth 
while to mention it in giving the principal 
points of difference between lynx and wildcats, 
as a wildcat has a pad like a house cat. If I 
had desired to go into minutiz, I could have 
stated that the muffle, or whiskers, of the lynx 
are much longer than those of the cat, and that 
the cat has more short black stripes under the 
legs, and some other points of difference; 
but my object was to give the most prominent 
points of difference in as few words as possible 
Mr. Samuels also says that I wrote that male 
lynx never engage in combat. These are his 
words, not mine. I stated that I had never 
known two to really fight, and that in examining 
hundreds of their ears I found no evidence of 
their fighting, but I made no such statement as 
that they never fight each other. Being of the 
cat family, it is but fair to assume that they 
sometimes fight, but I stated my experience and 
not what I could not prove. 
Another man writes of my stating that Mr. 
Wiltard “never received ‘a scratch.’ This he 
imagined, as I did not write that and do not 
know whether he was scratched or not. 
Still another writes of my talking of choking 
wildcats. I wrote of choking lynx, not wildcats, 
as I never knew anyone to try a wildcat, which 
I should think a much harder customer. 
Now as to choking lynx. I think it can be 
done, as I stated Mr. Willard did it, with little 
risk. His lynx had one forefoot in a trap. His 
partner would take -the lynx’s attention by 
plaguing him and give Willard a chance to jump 
on his back. The man’s weight would crush the 
lynx down so that he could not use his paws, 
especially as Willard told me that he hugged 
the lynx’s shoulders with his knees. As Mr. 
Samuels very correctly says, “the bones 
arms are quite powerful,’ while “the ribs are 
not much more robust. than those of a common 
hare.” 
I think that if those men who have told of 
such fearful experiences in escaping from lynx 
should see the body of one.after it was skinned 
they would be ashamed of themselves. Some 
tell of being followed. A cock turkey will fol- 
one who runs and is fully as dangerous. 
Because a lynx stops in the road or by the road- 
side is no sign of his ferocity, but only of his 
stupidity. Only this week a hunter told me of 
pole one by the side of the logging road in 
which he and a companion were traveling. As 
they were unarmed, one watched the lynx while 
the other went back nearly a mile and got a gun 
and shot him. If that lynx. intended to attack 
two men, why did he not attack when for a 
long time he had only one to fight? 
I once saw an immense wildcat which had his 
_ with 
of the 
“a view to 
head all scratched up and seemed to have been 
fighting, but he let a dog tree him. 
Speaking of choking animals I will give an 
experience I once had: A raccoon had carried 
off my otter trap. I found him on newly burned 
land backed partly under a large stump, head out 
and ready for a fight. As the land was burned 
clean, there was not a stick nor a stone that I 
could get and I dared not leave him. I seized 
him by the back of the neck and dragged him 
out and found that he was a large one and more 
’coon than [ had bargained for.- I got my hands 
around his neck and tried to choke him. If I 
had had such a pair of hands as Mr. Samuels 
tells of cracking walnuts with I could have made 
short work of him, but unfortunately I had only 
a common pair and did the best I could with 
what I had. While I was choking him he was 
improving his time by kicking me in the breast 
both hind feet, and anyone who thinks a 
*coon cannot kick differs from me in judgment. 
There was “something going on all the time.” 
When I got so tired that I relaxed my grip he 
would give a gasp or two and be all right for 
another round. Tell about a cat’s nine lives! 
A cat is not in the same class with a “coon. 
Finally he was accommodating enough to die a 
little before I got ready to, but if I am ever in- 
vited to another choking party I shall choose a 
lynx for a partner, every. time instead of a rac- 
coon. MANn_Ly Harpy. 

Growth of the Alligator. 
(Concluded from page 9.) 
BY RAYMOND L, DITMARS, CURATOR OF REPTILES, 
From the Eleventh Annual Report of the New York , 
Zoological Society. 
Many alligators never attain a length of much 
over seven or eight feet. These are stunted in- 
dividuals that have had the misfortune to take 
up their abode in localities wherein food had 
become scarce, or presented little variety. Some- 
times we find localities where there exist whole 
colonies made up of stunted members. It is 
possible to retard the growth of captive speci- 
mens by feeding them raw beef only, or a diet ' 
composed entirely of small fish, and excluding 
whole, warm-blooded prey, with its attendant 
bone nourishment. If the process is continued 
for several years’ time with a specimen about 
half grown, and then a miscellaneous and whole- 
some diet is substituted, the reptile will grow 
but little afterward and perhaps not at all, al- 
though it may become sexually mature and 
vigorous, and breed regularly. 
Like all crocodilians, the alligator constructs a 
regular nest by heaping up a great mound of 
twigs, dead grass and rushes, together with 
fallen masses of the familiar hanging moss. 
The eggs, to a considerable number, are de- 
posited well to the bottom of ‘this mound, 
where the heat generated by the decomposing 
vegetation produces their development. The 
period of incubation appears to be lengthy, 
taking at least eight weeks. There is apparent 
variation in the egg-laying period. In Hamp- 
ton county, South Carolina, the writer collected 
alligator eggs during the middle of August, 
The eggs collected at that time hatched during 
the following October. Through the courtesy 
of Dr. se ae M. Reese, of Syracuse University, 
however, the writer has been furnished with ad- 
vance ee of a paper* by him which shows 
that in Florida the alligator deposits its eggs 
much earlier in the year. Dr. Reese made de- 
tailed investigations of the nesting habits with 
obtaining, embryological material. 
The following is an extract from this article: 
“One of the first things to be determined, of 
course, in the collection of embryological ma- 
terial is the time at which the eggs are laid. 
Judging from the statements of native hunters 
the laying season of the alligator might be 
thought to be at any time from January to 
September. As a matter of fact, the month of 
June is the time when most, if not all, of the 
eggs are laid. S, F. Clarke gives June 9 and 
June 17 as the limits of the laying season in 
Florida, but I found at least one nest in which 
eges were laid as late as June 26; no eggs were 

*This paper is to be published officially at Washington, 










































































































