nd rolling over each other, till
one gets angry, when there is a quarrel and a fight, which, however,
is soon made up, the kitten generally making the first advances
towards a reconciliation, and then they go on as merrily as ever.
The cat is a very playful, good tempered little thing; the colour
is a reddish-yellow with darker red stripes like a tiger, and
slightly spotted; the ears and eyes are very large; the orbits of
the last bony and prominent. What is it? _Chaus_ or _Bengalensis_?[15]
I am not as yet learned in cats when very young. If it be a real
jungle cat--which my shikaris declare it to be--it strangely belies
the savage nature of its kind, as Thomson says:--

'The tiger darting fierce
Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom'd
The lively shining leopard speckled o'er
With many a spot the beauty of the waste
And scorning all the taming arts of man.'

"Poets are not always correct. Tigers have often been tamed, though
they are not to be depended on."

[Footnote 15: Both reputed to be untameable.]

Now we come to the true Lynxes, which are cats with very short tails,
long limbs, tufted ears, the cheeks whiskered almost as long as
Dundreary's, and feet the pads of which are overgrown with hair. Some
naturalists would separate them from the other cats, but the
connection is supplied by the last species which, though possessing
certain features of the lynx, yet interbreeds with the true cats.
The lynx was well known to the ancients, and was one of the animals
used in the arena from its savage disposition, and its sight was
considered so piercing as to be able to penetrate even stone walls!
There are no true lynxes in India proper; we must look to the colder
Trans-Himalayan countries for them. The following is from Thibet:--

NO. 217. FELIS ISABELLINA.
_The Thibetan Lynx_.

HABITAT.--Thibet.

DESCRIPTION.--"Pale isabella-brown, with scarcely a trace of
markings, but in some the spots come out even conspicuously in summer
_pelage_, especially on the limbs and belly, and the crown and middle
of the back are generally more or less infuscated, occasionally very
much so; in some the face is almost white, with traces of frontal
streaks, and there is always (the same as in the European lynx) a
short, narrow, dark streak on each side of the nose towards its
tip."--_Blyth_.

This species is similar in some respects to the European animal, but
the principal difference lies in the fee