The Chinese Cat has also long silky fur and pendent ears, and is regularly fattened and eaten. Mr. Swinhoe gives a curious quotation about this animal from the Hainan Gazetteer. “‘Lino’ (or Domestic Cat) ‘cannot endure Fleas or Lice on its skin. Cats that have nine holes inside the mouth will catch Rats the four seasons through.’” What the Chinese Gazetteer means by the nine holes is difficult to imagine. Is it not a celestial piece of hyperbole for a Cat with a good large gullet?—just as we speak of their tenacity of life by saying that they have nine lives—thus our Cat has nine lives, and the Chinese Rat-catcher has nine throats.
CHAPTER V.
CAT FAMILY—HYÆNA FAMILY—CRYPTOPROCTA FAMILY—AARD-WOLF FAMILY.
[THE COMMON JUNGLE CAT]—[THE COMMON LYNX]—Historical Sketch—Geographical Distribution—Distinctive Characters—Habits—Uses—[THE PARDINE LYNX]—[THE CANADIAN LYNX]—[THE RED LYNX]—[THE CARACAL]—[THE CHEETAH]—Distinctive Characters—Geographical Distribution—Employment in Hunting—[THE HYÆNA FAMILY]—External Characters—Skull and Teeth—[THE SPOTTED HYÆNA]—Geographical Distribution—Habits—Laughing Propensities—[THE BROWN HYÆNA]—[THE STRIPED HYÆNA]—[THE CRYPTOPROCTA FAMILY]—Characteristics of the [CRYPTOPROCTA]—Its Occurrence and Habits—[THE AARD-WOLF FAMILY]—Characters and Habits of the [AARD-WOLF].
THE COMMON JUNGLE CAT.[52]
THIS, as Mr. Jerdon observes, “is the Common Wild Cat all over India, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, and from the level of the sea to 7,000 or 8,000 feet of elevation. It frequents alike jungles and the open country, and is very partial to long grass and reeds, sugar-cane fields, corn-fields, &c. It does much damage to game of all kinds, Hares, Partridges, &c., and quite recently I shot a Peafowl at the edge of a sugar-cane field, when one of these Cats sprang out, seized the Peafowl, and, after a short struggle (for the bird was not dead), carried it off before my astonished eyes, and, in spite of my running up made good his escape with his booty. It must have been stalking these very birds, so immediately did its spring follow my shot.” Besides being so common in India, the Chaus is found all over Africa, especially in the north.
It is of a yellowish-grey colour, inclining to reddish in some parts, and white below. The muzzle and the limbs have dark stripes, and the tail is more or less ringed with black, but the greater part of the body is unspotted. It is interesting to notice that the annulation of the tail is most distinct in the young. We have elsewhere remarked that the young of all the one-coloured Cats (Lion, Puma, &c.), are more or less indistinctly spotted or striped. The ears are slightly tufted, so that this species, like the Spotted Wild Cat, approaches the Lynxes. The length, of the head and body together is twenty-six inches; of the tail, nine or ten; the height at the shoulder fourteen or fifteen. A black variety is to be met with in some parts of India.
THE COMMON LYNX.[53]
In the Lynx we come again to an animal of historical interest, for this creature was well known to the ancients. It is mentioned by Pliny as having first appeared in the Amphitheatre at Rome in the time of Pompey, having been brought to the great city from Gaul, where, at that time, it was probably very abundant. No doubt it would cause grand sport in the arena, for it is an extremely savage beast, and capable of holding its own against animals many times its own size. The Lynx was also one of the animals sacred to Bacchus, and is sometimes represented, instead of the Leopard, as drawing the car of this deity.
But the Lynx of the ancients has, as Buffon remarks, quite the character of a fabulous animal. It was supposed “that its sight was so piercing as to penetrate opaque bodies, that its water had the marvellous property of becoming a solid body, a precious stone, called lapis lyncurius!” This last legend, as Brehm suggests, probably arose from the fact that the amber brought from Liguria was called lapis ligurius, and that the Greek merchants, knowing nothing about such a place as Liguria, corrupted ligurius into lyncurius, and, of course, connected it with Lyncus. A survival of the superstition about the Lynx being able to see through walls still exists in our common expression, “Lynx-eyed.”
The Common Lynx is found chiefly in Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Northern Asia, and in the mountainous districts of Central Europe. In other parts of the Continent it is nearly or quite extinct.