WILD-CATS AT THE ZOO.
Thereservation of one-tenth of the area of Scotland for deer-forests has probably arrested the extermination of three, if not of four, of the largest and rarest of our birds and beasts of prey for at least a century. The great increase in the numbers of the golden eagle, and the migration of the ospreys from the lakes to the forests, are among the results of the protection so afforded. It was reasonable to expect that the wild-cat would also benefit by the policy, now generally in favour with owners of forests, of encouraging animals of prey to keep down the grouse and hares. The arrival at the Zoological Gardens of two genuine Scotch wild-cats, trapped during last year on the same estate in Inverness-shire, is evidence that even there the rarest and wildest of all British quadrupeds are recovering from the persecution of half a century of grouse and black-cock preserving. Both were caught in steel traps, and each had lost part of a fore-foot; but with the wonderful vitality of all cats, they so far recovered from their injuries that, on being confronted with each other, they at oncejoined battle, like the Border rider at Chevy Chase, who—
“When his legs were smitten off,Did fight upon his stumps.”
“When his legs were smitten off,Did fight upon his stumps.”
“When his legs were smitten off,Did fight upon his stumps.”
“When his legs were smitten off,
Did fight upon his stumps.”
These bold and courageous beasts, fresh from the remnants of the Caledonian Forest, have not diminished either in size or courage since the wild-cat was described by John Bossewell in 1597:—“He is slye and wittie, and seeth so sharply that he overcometh the darkness of night by the shyninge light of his eyen. In shape of body he is like unto a leopard”—[this is not the case, however]—“and hathe a great mouth. He doth delight that he enjoyeth his liberty; and in his youth he is swift, plyante, and merye. He maketh a rueful noise and a gasteful when he profereth to fight with another.” The growling of the wild-cats is “gasteful” indeed, not only when they proffer to fight with another, but whenever a friendly visitor proffers to look at them. That owned by Lord Lilford, which has been in the Zoological Gardens for some time, when exhibited at the cat show at the Westminster Aquarium, performed the singular and creditable feat in wild-cat annals of growling without ceasing for two whole days, varied only by explosions of hisses and spitting. This cat is somewhat lighter, and has fewer dark markings than the Scotch wild-cats; the ground hue of the fur is pepper-colour, its eyes pale-green, its nose very small—not a usual feature in wild-cats—and covered with fur, its face round and bushy, and its expressioninfinitely surly. The only stripes distinctly marked are two on either side of the head.
Though the list of so-called wild-cats includes nearly twenty species, there is only one, besides the animal we have described, which seems to compete with it as the possible undescended great original of the “bundle of concepts” which civilized man has in his mind when, with reference to all the varieties of the domestic animal, he uses the abstract term “cat.” This is the “chaus,” or jungle-cat, which bears somewhat the same geographical and tribal relation to a Scotch or Russian wild-cat as a Pathan tribesman to a Highlander. The Scotch wild-cat is found with very little variation throughout Northern and Central Europe, across the steppes of Northern Asia, as far as the southern limits of the Nepaul Hills. At a height of some 8000 ft. his place is taken by another cat, equally bold, and far less retiring and solitary, the “chaus,” which is common not only in India, but at the roots of the Caucasus, and throughout Northern Africa and Upper Egypt. A splendid specimen of this Oriental cousin of our wild-cats occupies a cage in the same house at the Zoo, under the somewhat misleading name of the “Egyptian cat.” Nothing could well be more different from the paintings of the sleek tabbies of ancient Egypt, the sacred animals of the goddess Bast, petted by priests, and taught to catch wild-fowl for their masters in the reedy banks of the Nile, than this rough, round, broad-headed, bushy-whiskered, “upstanding” savage, who has held hisown till the present day in the swamps of Asia and Africa, and in the immediate neighbourhood of every Indian country village or tank, just as the European wild-cat did in England till the days of the Tudors. The late General Douglas Hamilton, in his journals of sport in Southern India, tells a story of the courage of this Indian wild-cat, which matches exactly the experience of Charles St. John in Sutherlandshire. St. John’s terriers had brought a wild-cat to bay under a rock, and when he approached, the animal sprang straight at his face, and was only stopped by a blow from a stick which he had cut before coming up to aid the dogs. General Hamilton says of the chaus—“One of these animals came into our cantonment evidently on the prowl for fowls, or anything it could pick up; so we collected all the dogs we could, and had a hunt. We came to a long check, the dogs being quite at fault. After looking for some time, I spied the cat squatting in a hedge, and called for the dogs. When they came I knelt down and began clapping my hands and cheering them on; the cat suddenly made a clean spring at my face; I had just time to catch it as one would a cricket-ball, and giving its ribs a strong squeeze, I threw it to the dogs, not, however, before it had made its teeth meet in my arm, just above my wrist. For some weeks I had to carry my arm in a sling, and I shall carry the marks of the bite to my grave.” The chaus is a far finer animal even than the European wild-cat. It is larger and more powerful, though its proportionsand movements are almost the same. In colour it is a fine tawny-grey, with long bushy hair, a ruff round its face, yellow cheeks shading into white, a long, very broad nose, long ears slightly tufted, yellow eyes, and bars on its tail. There are also two dark bars on the inside of the arm, above the elbow; when laying its ears back, spitting and uttering growls like distant thunder, it is the “very moral” of a big, ill-tempered domestic tom-cat, which poaches all day, fights all night, and sleeps by choice in the coal-cellar. Apart from their general resemblance to the tame cat, both the chaus and the Scotch cat in their moments of repose exactly resemble the domestic species. They never “pace” their cages—a habit which distinguishes all leopards and tigers, and all the tiger-catswhen young. They sleep all day, if possible, either curled up on their backs with their noses upwards, like a tame cat in a sunny window; or with their backs drawn up and their fore-paws tucked neatly under their chests. When feeding, they do not lie down like the leopards, but crouch over their food, with their jaws almost upon the ground, and their backs somewhat arched, like a tame cat with a mouse. Anatomists state that the European wild-cat differs from the tame animal in the dimensions of that part of its interior which is in such request for violin-strings. If this objection is fatal to the claim of the former to be the ancestor of our cats, we should be inclined to find its direct ancestor in the chaus—a view which need not conflict with the conclusionsof M. Champfleury, who considers that the Egyptian cat was acclimatized in Egypt at the same time as the horse, in 1668B.C.
All the other wild “cats” are either tiger-cats, leopard-cats, or puma-cats, names in which the last half of the compound should, we think, be read rather as a “diminutive” than as an index to race. In them the habits and appearance of the larger rather than the smaller animal appear to the writer to bear the greater proportion in the affinities of the whole. From first impressions, the Bengal tiger-cat, for example, appears to be a variety of the domestic cat with the coat and colouring of a leopard, or rather of a cheetah. Its attitudes, or rather those of the full-grown specimen in the Society’s collection, are those of a tired house-cat. It sleeps in the same positions, and like the true cats never “paces” for exercise. But a young one of the same species, shown this year at the Westminster Aquarium, untamed, preserved all the lion-like features strongly developed, just as the young of lions and pumas preserve the spots which disappear at maturity. The movements of this little creature and its general proportions were almost exactly those of a quarter-grown lion. It had the square head, the flat massive jaws, and the same restless, eager, pacing movements from side to side of its cage, and feet always ready to claw or strike. The colouring and texture of the skin in the full-grown animal are wholly unlike any variety of domestic cat known to the “fancy.” Its colour is tawny, its coat shortand close, its eyes yellow with a black centre. The face of the adult is narrow like that of a female house-cat; but the six parallel lines, two on either side, and two in the centre of the head, break into spots upon the back. Its tail, which is long and thick, is spotted, not ringed, and it has spotted, leopard-like legs.
The collection of these beautiful smallerfelidæin the Zoological Gardens is less complete than that of any other tribe exhibited. Even the “clouded tiger,” the most perfect in colouring of all the spotted kinds, has disappeared from the collection, though some years ago there were two fine specimens in the Cat House. The “clouded tiger” is marked with almost rectangular ornaments of clouded black on a ground of rich buff. It is the largest of all the “tiger-cats,” and has a very long, thick, silky tail, ringed with black. This animal has a special claim to be an inmate of the Zoo, for it was first discovered and brought to this country by Sir Stamford Raffles, the moving spirit in the establishment of the Zoological Society. They were no less good than beautiful, and the following description of their behaviour from the pen of Sir Stamford Raffles himself should be contrasted with the ancient and inbred malignity of the true wild “cat.”
“Both my specimens,” he wrote, “were remarkable for good-temper and playfulness; no domestic kitten could be more so. They were always courting intercourse with persons passing by, and in the expression of the countenance,which was always open and smiling,showed the greatest delight when noticed, throwing themselves on their backs, and delighting in being tickled and rubbed. On board the ship there was a small Musi dog, who used to play round the cage with one of these animals, and it was amusing to see the playfulness and tenderness with which the latter came in contact with its inferior-sized companion. When fed with a fowl that had died, he seized the prey, and after sucking the blood and tearing it a little, he amused himself for hours in throwing it about, and jumping after it, in the manner that a cat plays with a mouse before it is quite dead. He never seemed to look on men or children as prey, but as companions. The natives assert that when wild they live principally on poultry, birds, and the smaller kind of deer. They are not found in numbers, and may be considered rather a rare animal, even in the southern part of Sumatra. Both specimens constantly amused themselves by jumping and clinging to the top of their cage, and throwing a somersault, and twisting themselves round in the manner of a squirrel when confined, the tail being extended, and showing to great advantage when so expanded.”
It is obvious that so active and beautiful an animal could not be seen with advantage, or kept in good health in the cramped little cages of the present Cat House. But the Society still possess a good specimen of the finest of the “self-coloured” puma-cats,—the golden cat of Sumatra, an island in which every ornamental species, whether bird or beast, seems endowedwith a double gift of beauty. In colouring it is unique, and its proportions are as elegant as its tints. The fur on the back is the colour of the red variety of gold-stone, with the texture of thick-piled velvet. This warm and luminous hue pales into white on the belly, and runs up the chest, ending on the chin, which is square and almost bearded, giving a tigerish expression to the head. On the mask of the face the reddy golden fur is striped with wavy lines of orange and white. The eyes are strangely large, dark, clouded, beryl-brown globes, with smoky-yellow topaz lights, and shine like round translucent gems set in a velvet case. This mass of orange-tawny, gold, and topaz, is set off by the pale rose-pink of the nose and lips, and the not unfrequent exhibition of rows of ivory teeth. The whole body is elegant and symmetrical, and the colouring so exactly balanced, that the warm white of the lower parts which ends in front at the point of the chin, extends with the same precision along the lower part of the tail even to the tip, as if the golden cat were fresh from a swim across a lake of cream. Among thelacunæin this part of the collection the marbled tiger-cat, the viverrine cat, the Pampas-cat, the Margay, the Eyra cat, the jaguarondi, and the leopard-cat of Bengal may be mentioned. Most of these have been seen at the Zoo at one time or another, and Mr. Bartlett found the “Eyra cat” a most affectionate and amusing pet. It is an American wild-cat, but far longer and lither in shape than others of the true cats, resembling a genet in shape. It isa tree-climbing species, as active on the branches as a squirrel.
On the other hand, there are a pair of ocelots which, in the absence of the clouded tiger, may be taken as representing almost the highest development of ornament among four-footed animals. One of the pair comes from Southern and the other from Central America. No two ocelots are marked exactly alike, but the general tone and shading is sufficiently alike to compare them generally with other species. The Argus pheasant alone seems to afford a parallel to the beauties of the ocelot’s fur, especially in the development of the wonderful “ocelli,” which, though never reaching in the beast the perfect cup and ball ornament seen on the wings of the bird, can be traced in all its earlier stages of spots and wavy lines, as far as the irregular shell-shaped ring and dot on the feet, sides, and back, just as in the subsidiary ornament of the Argus pheasant’s feathers. Most of the ground tint of the fur is a pearly smoke-colour, on which the spots develop from mere dots upon the legs, and speckles on the feet and toes to large egg-shaped ocelli on the flanks. There are also two beautiful pearl-coloured spots at the back of each ear, like those which form the common ornaments of the wings of many moths. As in the golden cat, the very large convex translucent eye and the pink nose make the face of the ocelot a wonderful combination of contrasts in colour and texture. Apparently they are tame and friendly, though the conditions of their lifeat the Zoo are hardly such as tend to promote good-temper.
The remaining occupants of the Cat House are mostly lynxes, or half-lynxes, like the servals and caracals, or civets and genets. There is a fine collection of the last pretty little creatures, which are far more like ichneumons and mongooses than any form of cat. The most interesting fact about these thoroughly Oriental-looking beasts is that one is actually found in the Alps, where one could almost as soon expect to discover a cobra or a crocodile. They are beautifully marked and spotted with black and dark-brown or smoky-grey, and are as restless as a mongoose or a coati.