WILD CATS IN SCOTLAND

Evening Star, Issue 22026, 11 May 1935, Page 19

WILD CATS IN SCOTLAND

NATURALISTS PUZZLED Naturalists are somewhat perplexed and gamekeepers a little anxious regarding the increase of wild cats in various parts of Scotland (says the London 'Sunday Times ’). The other day a fine specimen was trapped on the historic estate of Falkland. Fifeshire, where wild cats had not been seen since shortly after, the days when the Scottish kings hunted over this royal forest. In Invernessshire, Eoss-shire, and Northern Perthshire, which are weR within the Highland territorial circuit, the number of wild cats captured in recent years has completely upset a long'accepted theory on the part of many naturalists that the species was fast becoming extinct and that specimens were only to be found in the mountain fastnesses of Western Sutherlandshire, which, from time immemorial, has been known as the “ Oattick country,” For many years very few specimens were captured even in this region, where it is believed the original wild cat of Scotland had taken up its last line of retreat before its relentless pursuers —game preservers and specimen hunters. HAS TABBY GONE WILD? Now the question is being debated whether the augmented numbers of the species which nave distributed themselves over sue an extensive area in Scotland are of the original wild cat order or a reversion to a wild type from the felix domestica. As, regards form of body, fierceness, and skin markings, the specimens which have been found so frequently of kite differ little, if any, from those of the original native wild cat of Scotland. But there are naturalists who assert that there are features difficult to distinguish and detect, calculated to raise doubts as to the of not a few authorities that the indigenous wild cat of Scotland is on the increase.