May 18th, Athabaska River, on roof of a trapper's hut found the bodies of 30 Lynxes.
May 19th, young Lynx shot to-day, female, very thin, weighed only 12 1/2 lbs., should have weighed 25. In its stomach nothing but the tail of a white-footed mouse. Liver somewhat diseased. In its bowels at least one tapeworm.
June 3d, a young male Lynx shot to-day by one of the police boys, as previously recorded. Starving; it weighed only 15 lbs.
June 6th, adult female Lynx killed, weighed 15 lbs.; stomach contained a Redsquirrel, a Chipmunk, and a Bog-lemming. (Synaptomys borealis.)
June 18th, young male Lynx, weight 13 lbs., shot by Preble on Smith Landing; had in its stomach a Chipmunk (borealis) and 4 small young of the same, apparently a week old; also a score of pinworms. How did it get the Chipmunk family without digging them out?
June 26th, on Salt Mt. found the dried-up body of a Lynx firmly held in a Bear trap.
June 29th, one of the Jarvis bear-cub skins was destroyed by the dogs, except a dried-up paw, which he threw out yesterday. This morning one of the men shot a starving Lynx in camp. Its stomach contained nothing but the bear paw thrown out last night.
These are a few of my observations; they reflect the general condition—all were starving. Not one of them had any Rabbit in its stomach; not one had a bellyful; none of the females were bearing young this year.
To embellish these severe and skeletal notes, I add some incidents supplied by various hunters of the north.
Let us remember that the Lynx is a huge cat weighing 25 to 35 or even 40 lbs., that it is an ordinary cat multiplied by some 4 or 5 diameters, and we shall have a good foundation for comprehension.