September, 1943 Monr: 
counties, 7 of them bordering the Ohio or 
Mississippi rivers and 5 bordering the [lli- 
nois or Sangamon rivers, fig. 17. 
Two bobcats were killed in Union 
County in 1936, and one specimen is 
mounted in a restaurant at Ware, fig. 18. 
One large bobcat was shot in a swamp 
near Miller City, Alexander County, in 
FURBEARER DISTRIBUTION AND INCOME 
ya 
apiece, the pelts add little to the fur in- 
come of the state. 
OTTER 
Otters have long been so scarce in IIli- 
nois that they have not figured largely 
in the state’s fur trade for many years. 
Fig. 18.—Bobcat or bay lynx, Lynx rufus, caught at Ware, Union County, Illinois, 1936. 
Its weight was 21 pounds. 
November, 1942, one was killed near 
Murphysboro in December, 1942, and 
three additional bobcats were killed, pre- 
sumably near Murphysboro, late in 1942 
or early in 1943 (Anonymous 1943). 
An unverified recent record for Randolph 
County is reported by Necker & Hatfield 
(1941). Earnest and excited hunters al- 
most regularly report bobcats from vari- 
ous parts of the state, usually from the 
heavily wooded southern counties. “The 
U. S. Forest Service (1937, 1938) fails 
to report bobcats within its Illinois hold- 
ings, the Shawnee National Forest, indi- 
cating that, if these animals are present, 
they are extremely rare. hey are not 
now protected by law. 
DOMESTIC CAT 
In 5 recent years, 104 domestic cats 
were reported caught by the 8,862 fur- 
takers making reports in those years. It 
is probable that the 121,566 trappers esti- 
mated to have operated during those years 
caught about 1,300 or more cats, or about 
260 annually. Worth only about 10 cents 
‘They were subject to an open season 
throughout Illinois until the end of the 
1928-29 fur season. In the game code of 
1929, they were given complete protec- 
tion until Nov. 15, 1933; before that 
date arrived, the period of complete pro- 
tection had been extended indefinitely. 
At one time distributed along all of 
the Illinois rivers, and, according to Ken- 
nicott (1855), not uncommon in Cook 
County about 1855, otters were by the 
winter of 1907-08 commonly reported 
only from southern Illinois; several were 
taken in the cypress swamps of Alexander 
County during that winter, according to 
Wood (1910). A few were still present 
in some of the counties farther north, 
bordering or near the Mississippi and 
Illinois rivers, fig. 19, according to Forbes 
(1912) who had requested Game Com- 
missioner John Wheeler to obtain infor- 
mation about their distribution. Although 
the Commissioner so worded his letter to 
game wardens in each county that they 
might conclude that: Forbes wished to 
know if otters were present anywhere in 
Illinois, most of them answered specifi- 
