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been successful in breeding many of the rarer species. Not the least interesting
of his discoveries is the exact period of gestation of the Wild Cat. ‘ That is
usually/ he says in a letter to me, ‘ sixty-eight days; last season (1903) after
sixty-six days my old female had four kittens, which is the largest number I have
bred in a litter; and it would seem very likely that a large litter may be dropped
a little quicker than a small number, but I do not know if this has been observed
in the case of wild animals generally. The kittens of Wild Cats are decidedly,
even considerably, bigger than those of domestic Cats.’
Again, in a letter dated April 17, 1904, Mr. Cocks says: ‘ My present old
female Wild Cat, which came from Balmacaan, produced three kittens yesterday,
April 16, after a gestation of sixty-five days ; I put her with the male on
February 10, and saw them pairing on the 17th of that month. They probably
paired again on the 20th, and certainly on the morning of the 2ist< The
following day I took her away from the male.’
Mr. Cocks has written notes on the gestation of the Wild Cat which will be found
in the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1876 and 1881 (page 307). In 1875 he first got Wild Cats to
breed, and also in the three following years, two or three kittens being born in
each litter. Since then he has been successful in rearing young Wild Cats almost
every year. In 1903 he succeeded in obtaining some pretty hybrids between a male
Wild Cat and a female domestic Persian Cat, and again in April 1904 between a
Wild Cat male and a female Abyssinian Cat. Crosses between the two, however,
had been previously bred by Mr. Pusey, of Pusey House, Berks.1
It is not certain whether Wild Cats have one or two litters in the year. The
young are usually born in May, two to five in number, and after the milk stage are
fed by the parents on young rabbits, birds, and other animals. They accompany
the mother until about September, when they are able to hunt for themselves. The
probability is that Wild Cats breed only once in the twelvemonth, but I have seen
young animals killed in Scotland in October which certainly could not have been
more than forty days old. These must have been dropped as late as the end of
August or the beginning of September.
Writing on this point Mr. Cocks informs me : ‘ I have received Wild Cats barely
full grown at such times as would lead me to suppose that they were born rather
later than May, but hardly so late as September; the latest of these, which I noted
on receipt, was probably barely six months old on February 15. It was therefore
probably born about the latter part of August, but may not have been born until