The Living Animals of the World, Volume I: Mammals

of the World The Living Animals

floor was one dead fowl. The impudentlooking almost as large as a small leopard. On the jungle-cat rushed for the door, but had the coolness to seize the hen as it passed, and with this in its mouth rushed past the owner of the hens, his servants and retainers, and reached a piece of thick scrub near with its prize. its habits in both As the chaus is common both in India and Africa, a comparison of : " It is the commoncontinents is somewhat interesting. Jerdon, the Indian naturalist, writes wild cat from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, and from the level of the sea to 7,000 or 8,000 feet elevation. It frequents alike the jungles and the open country, and is very partial to long all game, especiallyreeds, and grass, sugarcane-fields, and corn-fields. It does much damage to to hares and partridges. Quite recently I shot a pea-fowl at the edge of a sugarcane-field. One of these cats sprang out, seized the pea-fowl, and after a short struggle for the bird was not quite dead carried it off before my astonished eyes, and, in spite of my running up, made its springhis escape with his booty. It must have been stalking these very birds, so closely did Ifollow my shot. It is said to breed twice a year, and to have three or four young at a birth. have very often had the young brought to me, but always failed in rearing them; arid they always showed a savage and untamable disposition. I have seen numbers of cats about villages in various parts of the country that must have been hybrids between this cat and the tame ones."

The late Sir Oliver St. John was more fortunate with his jungle-cat kittens. He obtained three in Persia. These he reared till they were three months old, by which time they became so tame that they would climb on to his knees at breakfast-time, and behave like ordinary kittens. One was killed by a greyhound, and another by a scorpion a curious fate for a kitten to meet. The survivor then became morose and ill-tempered, but grew to be a large and strong animal. "Two English bull-terriers of mine, which would make short work of the largest their almostdomestic cat, could do nothing against my wild cat," says the same writer. " In daily battles the dogs always got the worst of it."

In Africa the chaus haunts the thick cover borderingo the rivers. There it catches not its spooronly water-fowl, but also fish. According to Messrs. Nicolls and Ellington, " may constantly be seen imprinted on the mud surrounding such pools in the periodical watercourses as are constantly being dried up, and in which fish may probably be imprisoned without, chance of escape." The chaus has for neighbour in Africa the beautiful SERVAL, a larger wild cat. This species is reddish in colour, spotted on the body, and striped on the is more common legs. The ears are long, but not tufted, like those of the lynx. The serval in North and Central Africa than in the South. But it is also found south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Messrs. Nicolls and Eglington say of it: "Northward through South Central Africa it is fairly common. It frequents the thick bush in the vicinity of rivers. The karosses, or mantles, made from its skins are only worn by the chiefs and very high dignitaries amongst the native tribes, and are in consequence eagerly sought after, on which account the species runs a risk of rapid extermination. Its usual prey consists of the young of the smaller antelopes, francolins, and wild guinea-fowls, to the latter of which it is a most destructive enemy in the breeding-season. When obtained young, the serval can be tamed with little trouble; by L. Midland, F.Z.S.] [Xorth FincUey. but it is difficult to rear, and always SERVAL. shows a singular and almost unaccount-

This is a spotted cat, with long ears, but no tufts on them, as in the true lynxes. able aversion to black men. Its

Photo by Ottomar Anschiitz] (Berlin.

MALE SERVAL,

‘The serval is a link between the leopards and tiger-cats, quite large enough to kill the young of tho smaller antelopes, 59

6o The Living Animals of the World

otherwise even temper is always aroused at it is the sight of a native. When in anger, by no means a despicable antagonist, and very few dogs would like to engage in a combat with one single-handed."

THE COMMON WILD CAT.

The WILD CAT was once fairly common all over England. A curious story, obviously exaggerated, shows that traditions of its ferocity were common at a very early date. The tale is told of the church of Barn-borough, in Yorkshire, between Doncaster and Barnsley. It is said that a man and a wild cat met in a wood near and began to fight; that the cat drove the man out of the wood as far as the church, where he took refuge in the porch; and that both the man and cat were so injured that they died. According to Dr. Pearce, the event was formerly commemorated by a rude painting in the church. Mr. Charles St. John had an experience with a Scotch wild cat very like that which General Douglas Hamilton tells of the jungle-stories of their attack- cat. He heard many ing and wounding men when trapped or when their escape was cut off, and before 1 long found out that these were true. " was fishing in a river in Sutherland," he wrote, "and in passing from one pool to another had to climb over some rocky ground. In doing so, I sank almost up to my knees in some rotten heather and moss, almost upon a wild cat which was concealed under it. startled as the cat itself I was quite as much

Photo by Ottomar Anschiitz'] [Berlin. could be, when I saw the wild-looking beast

SERVAL CLIMBING.

rush so unexpectedly from between my feet, Note the active, cat-like method of climbing. with every hair on her body on end, making her look twice as large as she really was. I had three small Skye terriers with me, wrhich immediately gave chase, and pursued her till she took refuge in a corner of the rocks, where, perched in a kind of recess out of reach of her enemies, she stood with her hair bristled out, cat. Having no weapon with me, I laid down my rod,spitting and growling like a common cut a good-sized stick, and proceeded to dislodge her. As soon as I was within six or seven feet of the place, she sprang straight at my face over the dogs' heads. Had I not struck her in mid-air as she leaped at me, I should probably have received a severe wound. As it was, she fell with her back half broken among the dogs, who with my assistance dispatched her. I never saw an animal fight so desperately, or one which was so difficult to kill. If a tame cat has nine lives, a wild cat must have a dozen. Sometimes one of these animals will take up its residence at no great distance from a house, and, entering the hen-roosts and outbuildings, will carry off fowls in the most audacious manner, or even lambs. Like other

The Cat Tribe 61

vermin, the wild cat haunts the shores of lakes and rivers, and it is therefore easy to know where to set a trap for them. Having caught and killed one of the colony, the rest of them are sure to be taken if the body of their slain relative is left in the same place not far from their usual hunting-ground and surrounded with traps, as every wild cat passing that way it."will to a certainty come to

The wild cat ranges from the far north of Scotland, across Europe and Northern Asia, to the northern slopes of the Himalaya. It has always been known as one of the fiercest and wildest of the cats, large or small. The continual ill-temper of these creatures is remarkable. In the experience of the keepers of menageries there is no other so intractably savage. One still snarls and spitspresented to the Zoological Gardens by Lord Lilford some eight years ago at any one who comes near it, even the keeper.

The food of the wild cat is grouse, mountain-hares, rabbits, small birds, and probably fish offers. It is wholly nocturnal; consequently nocaught in the shallow waters when chance one ever sees it hunting for prey. Though it has long been confined to the north and northwest of Scotland, it is by no means on the verge of extinction. The deer-forests are saving it to some extent, as they did the golden eagle. Grouse and hares are rather in the way when deer are being stalked; consequently the wild cat and the eagle are not trapped or shot. The limits of its present fastnesses were recently fixed by careful Scotch naturalists at the line of the Caledonian Canal. Mr. Harvie Brown, in 1880, said that it only survived in Scotland north of a line running from Oban to the junction of the three counties of Perth, Forfar, and Aberdeen, and thence through Banffshire to Inverness. But the conclusion of a writer in the Edinburgh Review of July, 1898, in a very interesting article it onlyon the survival of British mammals, has been happily contradicted. He believed that survived in the deer-forests of Inverness and Sutherlandshire. The wild cats shown in the illustrations of these pages were caught a year later as far south as Argyllshire. The father and two kittens were all secured, practically unhurt, and purchased by Mi. Percy Leigh Pemberton for his collection of British mammals at Ashford. in Kent. This gentleman has had great success in preserving his wild cats. They, as well as others martens, polecats, and other small carnivora are fed on fresh wild rabbits killed in a warren near; consequently they are in splendid condition. The old "torn" wild cat, snarling with characteristic ill-humour, was well supported by the wild and savage little kittens, which exhibited all the family temper. Shortly

Sit permission of Percy Leigh Pemberton, Esq.

EUROPEAN WILD CAT.

The British representative of this species is rapiuly becoming extinct. The specimen whose portrait i* given here was caught in Argyllshire.

of the World 62 The Living Animals

By permission of Percy Leigh Pemberton, Esq.

SCOTCH WILD CATS,

These wild cats, the property of Mr. P. Leigh Peruberton, though regularly fed and well treated, show their natural bad-temper in their faces.

before the capture of these wild cats another family were trapped in Aberdeenshire and brought to the Zoological Gardens. Four kittens, beautiful little savages, with bright green eyes, and uninjured, were safely taken to Kegent's Park. But the quarters given them were very small and cold, and they all died. Two other full-grown wild cats brought there a few years earlier were so dreadfully injured by the abominable steel traps in which they were caught that they both died of blood-poisoning.