WILDCAT, any of the smaller species of feline animals (family &lids, q.v.) in its feral condition; a lynx. The term is a general one applying to all the smaller felines; but locally has usually some specific application. Thus in European books and speech the "wildcat° proms erly and ordinarily means Frlis cants, formerly well known in all forested districts from the British Isles to Siberia, and still to be found in the less settled districts of the Continent south of Sweden, though extinct in Great Britain, France and Italy; it is also numerous in north ern Scotland. The wildcat is larger. heavier and more strongly built than the domestic cat (to which it has contributed little, if anything: see CAT), has a stouter head and shorter and thicker tail, which does not taper; besides other peculiarities. Its body is yellowish gray, with a dark stripe along the spine, and with numer ous darkish stripes descending more or less vertically down the sides, marking the limbs transversely and forming rings around the tail. It is noted for its savagery, and thoroughly tamed examples are very rare, if any ever existed. Like most of the wild felines the 'male makes her nest in a hollow tree, or cleft of rocks, in an abandoned crow's nest, or some similarly convenient place, and brings forth there in early summer an annual litter of young. which show the ferocity of their native disposi tion from the start.
The other European wildcat and the North American wildcats are lynxes, for merly set apart in a separate genus (Lynx); but most modern zoologists do not do so. •The lynxes," says Mivart, 'are animals which pre sent a markedly different aspect from that of other cats. Their legs are long, and their tail is, with one exception (that .of the caracal), very short. Their ears also are tufted at the tip: The pupil is linear when contracted. The orbits are incompletely surrounded by hone. They have no tooth representing the common cat's first upper premolar, while that answering to its second upper premolar is largely ckvel oped. The intestines arc also very short . Still the above given characters are variable in the cat group. In some cats other than lynxes the tail is short, and some have the ears more or less penciled. Some, as we have seen, have long legs, and in many the upper premolar is wanting. The lynxes, therefore, cannot be separated off as a nominally distinct group of genus. The lynxes are very variable in their color and markings, and the Northern lynx also varies greatly in the abundance of its hair, according to the season, the animal having a very different aspect in winter from that which it presents in summer. The Northern lynxes
arc generally reckoned as forming two species, one belonging to the Old World (F. borealis), and at least one species belonging to the New (F. canadensis). The American forms are often also described as alone constituting three spe cies — namely, F. canadensir, F. rufa, and F. maculata. After a careful examination . I am, however, not only quite unable to regard the American varieties, as anything more than varieties, but I am inclined to the opinion that there can be no real specific distinctness be tween the Northern lynxes of the two hemi spheres, their skulls as well as their skins being so much alike.' The European lynx is still found in northern Scandinavia, Russia and eastward, and in some of the wilder mountain chains of central Eu rope. It is reddish gray, as a rule, indistinctly spotted or not at all, most prominently when young. A large one will measure 40 inches from the snout to the root of the short, thick tail. The lynx of northern America is very similar, the color grading from nearly uniform grizzly gray in far northern specimens which are the largest in average size, toward the red dish and yellowish, more or less spotted south ern specimens, which run much smaller: these colors are always brighter in summer than in winter. The long hair depending from the checks is characteristic of the group, especially in old males, and gives a very grim aspect to the countenance. These variations, which are local in some of their manifestations, have led the more recent school of American zoologists, led by Merriam, to name several species and subspecies. Thus the Canadian lynx (F. COMO. de ) is not regarded as findable south of Canada, and is characterized by its long gray unspotted coat. The lynxes or 'bobcats° of the United States generally are F. rufa, yellow ish brown spotted on the sides, with dark brown, and having other markings; a sub species (maculata), more profusely spotted, ex tends the range of the cat to the Paafic Coast; and various other subspecies, distinguished by color, are found in the Gulf States and west ward to Central America. All have substan tially the same rapacious qualities and habits, varying with the character of the country and climate in which each variety lives, and the kind of small animals upon which they must depend for food. They are chiefly solitary and nocturnal; and soon disappear from all well settled regions.