always in timbered country, though the animal frequently lives in the woods
towards the upper limits of forest growth; out on the breezy open deer forest, far
above the woods and scrub, it selects some safe retreat among the weathered rocks
and boulders, which is not infrequently a hole deserted by a fox or badger.
Where I am most intimately acquainted with this fierce but beautiful creature— in
the Balmacaan and Glenmoriston district— the lairs are usually in the upland deer
forests, but in the northern and western districts of Arisaig, Sunart, and Moidart
stalkers have pointed out to me spots which had been formerly tenanted for years
by Wild Cats which were situated among rocks within the upper forest growth.
Young Wild Cats have, however, been found in Drumnadrochet lying almost
in the open in a bed of dry bracken; while instances are said to have occurred
where Wild Cats have converted deserted ‘ hoodie ’ and buzzard nests into
nurseries.
Emerging at dawn and before sunset, this stealthy animal creeps in and out
of the forest growth and rocks, looking for its prey. When the victim is discovered
it is carefully stalked by sight alone until closely approached, when the
Cat rushes in with a series of immense forward bounds. So swift is this final
attack that four-footed game finds it impossible to escape, even if its terror-paralysed
nerves did not benumb its muscles.
During many years spent in deer stalking in the Scottish Highlands I have
always made it a practice to interrogate my companions as to the habits of the
rarer wild animals among which they live. To illustrate how unusual it is for
the Wild Cat to be seen, and rarer still to be seen hunting, I may mention that,
out of many I questioned, I found only one man who had ever observed the
incident.
This individual, John Ross, stalker in Lord Lovat’s deer forest, Kiltarlity,
Beaufort, told me the tale one morning in 1891, as we spied for roe, and I thought
it so interesting that I wrote it down at the time.
‘ It will be about twenty-five years ago (1866) that early one morning in June
I was looking over my beat to see what deer were on the ground, when I saw
the sun shining on something brown on the open hillside about 300 yards below
me by the edge of a clump of bracken. Thinking it was a hare I was about to
pass on when the creature moved, and I saw it could not be a hare from its slow
gliding movement. So I sat down and put the glass on it, and saw that it was
a large Wild Cat. At first it kept slowly moving along on the edge of the ferns,
but just inside, and when he crossed the least open space he took two or three
swift paces, just as a tame Cat does in stalking a sparrow. For some time I could
not see what he was after, but by and by a rabbit came out into the open about
three hundred yards ahead of the Cat, and commenced feeding. As the Cat advanced
nearer and nearer the rabbit kept moving out to where the grass was better, and each
time he ran the Cat made a little run too, as if anxious to get betwixt him and
his line of retreat. In a very short time the Cat disappeared just as he reached
the rabbit-run, and as both animals were now within the field of my glass I could
watch the action of both. All of a sudden the rabbit, which was perhaps twenty
yards out in the open, dropped his ears, half squatted, and then began running
aimlessly about in circles. I could not hear his screams of fear, but could
distinctly see his mouth open and that he was calling in terror. At the same
moment the Wild Cat, with all his hair bristling, burst from the ferns, and, making
three or four tremendous bounds four or five feet into the air, and going at great
speed, sprang on the back of the rabbit, who seemed paralysed and unable to move
further. The Cat then seemed to give the rabbit a bite or two on the neck, upon
which it lay quite still. He then raised his head and looked carefully all round
and licked his lips, after which he licked the head and throat of the rabbit all
over, taking the blood. He then picked up the rabbit and started off, so I stood
up and cried out, when he looked up the hill a minute, and, dropping the rabbit,
galloped off into a birch wood. The place was close to my home, so I went in
and got a trap which I set over the disembowelled rabbit. But the Cat never
returned. I think he had got a fright when seeing me.’
This mode of attack of the British Wild Cat exactly coincides with the usual
method employed by all the smaller members of the Felidce, including the
cheetah. They stalk carefully to within a short distance, and then put on
a tremendous speed, at the same time making their advance as formidable and
surprising as possible. In the Canadian forests I have seen the whole tragedy
of the lynx taking the varying hare written on the snow as plainly as if one had
been there to witness it.
The Wild Cat probably stalks birds in exactly the same fashion except that
he knocks them down with his paw as they rise, Wild Cats are said to make
a loud screaming noise, which causes game in their vicinity to squat, and so
become an easy prey.
Mr. Alfred Heneage Cocks, who has written many excellent papers on British
animals in the * Zoologist,’ began keeping British animals in confinement in 1869,
and since then he has studied most of our native mammals in captivity, and has
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