when I heard a woodman's axe. More by signs than by words, I made him comprehend that he must follow the dog as long as he was able; sat down to rest for a moment, and then loaded my gun. No sound was now to be heard; the whole wood seemed as if it had never been disturbed. I shouldered my gun, and was proceeding, as I thought, in the direction of the chase, when I met my brother, who had from the first taken a different route, in order to intercept the fox at another point. We proceeded together in search of hound and woodman, but for a long time unsuccessfully. At last we thought of returning to the place where I first found him at work. Our delight may be imagined, when we saw the hound tied up, the woodman smoking his pipe, and the fox lifeless on the ground, a perfect monster. The man's account was, that after following a considerable way, and being nearly distanced, there was a sudden check; when he came up, he found the fox dead, the hound standing over him, without having touched a hair-he had run till his heart was broken. We sent this magnificent fox to be stuffed at the College Museum, Glasgow. Those who had charge of it told us they had never seen one nearly so large, and many who came on purpose to see it were equally astonished at its size. It is now in my possession; and the woodcut shows most correctly the difference between it and a very fine specimen of the poultry-fox, shot in my brother's preserves. The brush of the larger fox is not longer than that of the smaller, and less white on the tip, but it is uncommonly thick and bushy. He stands X very high upon his legs, which are exceedingly muscular; his head is very broad, and his nose not nearly so peaked as the other's; his coat is also much more shaggy, and mixed with white hairs—an invariable mark of the hill-fox, and which makes his colour lighter and a less decided red than the fox of the Lowlands. THE WILD-CAT THE wild-cat is now rare in this country. Although I have spent a great part of my life in the most mountainous districts of Scotland, where killing vermin formed the gamekeeper's principal business, and often my own recreation, I have never seen more than five or six genuine wildcats. Many, on reading this, will perhaps wonder at my statement, and even give it a flat contradiction, by alleging the numbers that have come under their own notice. Nay, I was even gravely told by a gentleman from the south of England, a keen observer and fond of natural history, that there were wild-cats there,* and the skin of a cat killed in one of the southern counties was sent to me as a proof; this, I need hardly say, was the large and sleek coat of an overgrown Tom, whose ancestors, no doubt, had purred upon the hearth-rug. * I have been frequently assured that wild-cats have been killed on the Cumberland and Westmoreland hills; but, never having seen any specimens, I cannot speak from my own knowledge. There is no doubt that martens exist in some of the most hilly and wooded districts of England. I am far from meaning that there are no cats running wild in England; of course, wherever there are tame cats, some of them, especially the very old ones, will forsake their homes, and live by plunder in the woods. These may also breed; but their progeny, though undomesticated, will always be widely different in habits, in appearance, in strength, and in ferocity, from the true cat of the mountains. I have seen no less than thirty of these naturalised wild-cats trapped in a year in a single preserve in the Highlands; some of them might have been mistaken for the genuine breed. The colour in both was pretty much alike, but there were other points which clearly showed their domestic origin. * They were, in fact, I have seen many a cross between the wild and tame cat. of this kind stuffed in museums and collections, as fine specimens of the wild-cat, and believed to be so even by those who might have known better. The unerring marks of the thorough-bred species are, first the great size,-next, the colour, which does not vary * The mischief done to game even by the house-cat, especially if halfstarved in the cottages of the poor, may be shown from the admission of a witness whose evidence will not be doubted. A friend of mine had shot a large cat in a covert adjoining the cottage of an old woman, and, being rather pleased at ridding the preserve of such an enemy, was carrying it too ostentatiously past her door. She banged out in a fury, demanding "how he daur'd to kill the best cat in a' the country?" He replied that I wandering cats were never of much use for mice." "Mice! Wha's speakin o' mice, or rats aither? There was scarcely a day she didna bring in a young hare or a rabbit or a patrick. Use! It wad be somethin' to be prood o', if thae ill-faured brutes o' dogs o' yours were half as usefu' !!" |