LYNN REGIS, tin rejig. or KING'S LYNN. A seaport in the County of Norfolk. England, three miles from the mouth of the Great Ouse. and 41 miles northwest of Norwich (Map: England. G 4). It has fine ecclesiastical buildings, national schools, and charitable institutions. Its grammar school ( where Eugene Aram was usher) was founded in 1510. The town was formerly fortified and defended by a moat, which, with ruins of the walls and the handsome Gothic 'South Gates.' still exists. The town owns real estate, a water supply, electric works, and a cemetery, and main tains baths, free library, fire brigade, and a tech , nieal school. The industrial establishments in clude shipyards, oil-mills, machine-shops, iron foundries, breweries, malt-houses. etc. Lynn received its first charter from King .John in 1204. It was known as Lynn Episcopi, Bishop's Lynn, which at the Reformation was changed to Lynn Regis, or King's Lynn. Population, in 1891, 18.300; in 1901, 20.300. Consult: Richards, His tory of Lynn (Lynn. 1812) ; Harrod. Records of King's Lynn (Lynn, 1874).
LYNX (Lat. lynx, front Gk. Xti-yE, lynx; con nected with Lith. hiszis, AS. lox, 011G. Inhs, Ger. Lochs, lynx, and probably with Lat. luccre, to shine, Gk. NE/la-crew, lenssein, to see. Skt. rue, to shine, Getout-eh Slay. lucha, beam of light, Orr. lochc, lightning, OHG. liolrc, Oer, Licht, AS. bloht, Eng. light). A kind of wild eat, of which those in North America are examples. It differs from the ordinary small cats of the wilderness by having a less elongated. more robust form, with the haunches elevated and all the limbs massive, the tail very short, the fur generally long, in old males forming almost a ruff about the face, and the ears tipped with tufts or pencils of hair. Some naturalists have separated a group of these animals from the genus Fells as a genus Lynx, but there seems no good reason to regard the animal as essen tially different throughout the whole of the north temperate zone, or to give it more than the one name, Fells lynx. In the Old World the lynx was once a general inhabitant of the Arcto glean region, hut to-day it is never seen of the Baltic, except in Spain, where it is repre sented by a highly spotted form, the pardine lynx pardalina), which Alivart (The New York, 1892) concluded to be a separate southern species. The lynx may be found throughout all Asia north of the Himalayas, varying much in its colors, aeon-ding as it dwells in the Siberian forests, or on the dry plains, or amid the Hima layan or Tibetan heights. The caraeal (q.v.) is a near relative. Its food and habits vary with its habitat, hut it is everywhere the strongest and utmost savage cat of its size. and often kills goats and sheep as well as the smaller prey more usual to it.
In North America the lynx originally in habited every part of the continent north of an indefinite point in or Central America. It has been traditional to regard the American lynxes as forming two species—the northern 'red,' or Canada lynx, queivee' (i.e. limp eervier),
or 'catamount; and the southern or 'bay' lynx or 'bobcat.' Both of these are highly variable in size, coloration, and proportion of parts, and, although no less than three species and II sub species are distinguished and named in Elliot'a synopsis of Ma in nulls (('hicago, 1901), there scents to be no good reason for treating the American animal as anything but the circumpolar lynx, varied here and there by /oval influences. The length varies from about 40 inches down to 30 inches, front nose to root of tail. The largest specimens mule from the northern forests. while the smallest are those dwelling in the open country of the interior and the far Southwest; but, in accordance with Allen's law, the latter have the limbs and tail longer in proportion to the size of the animal. The color of the Northern lynx is grizzly brownish-gray, the car-tufts and end of the tail black, and the belly white; those of Newfoundland are a richer brown. and of Alas ka paler than the average. Toward the south there appears an increasing tendency to reddish ness, which is much brighter in the summer than in the Winter coat; aad the fur is marked with spotting,s and lines about the head, which are scant and obscure in the Northern specimens, but very pronounced in those from the Southwest. The pelts find a good sale among furriers.
The habits of lynxes are those of the forest eats generally, and their depredations upon the farmer's poultry, together with the fear inspired by their screams at night and the value of their pelts, have led to their extermination in the more thickly settled States, except in mountain ranges or large tracts of forest, or They are per sistent mousers, however, and probably more than repay their occasional thefts by destroying great numbers of injurious rodents. Chiefly nocturnal in their movements, they sleep by day in hollow trees and caverns, and in such places. on a bed of leaves and grass. they bring forth and conceal their kittens, which the mother will defend with a ferocity and skill in fence few animals can withstand. Keen, agile, patient. muscular, and resourceful, the lynx is the terror of the woods in summer, and fares well : but how it is able to the lifeless cold of the Northern for ests in winter is one of the wonders of nature.
Brmioc.axrflY. Audubon and Bachman. Quad rupeds of North America (New York, 1S46) ; Godman, American Natural History (Philadel phia. 1836) ; Richardson, Fauna BOT•Uli meri cana (London. 1829); Lockington, in Mandard A (aural History, vol. v. (Boston, 1884) ; Stone and Crain, American Animals (New York, 1902) ; Lydekker, Royal (or New) Natural his tory, vol. i. ( London, 1895) ; Myth, "Monograph of the Species of Lynx," in the Journal of the Asiatic Society (Calcutta, 1846). See Colored Plate of FE LID.E, accompanying the article LION.