WHEN CATS TAKE TO POACHING.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 30, 12 April 1907, Page 2

WHEN CATS TAKE TO POACHING.

_t, A poacher in the West' Hiding of Yorkshire tells how one night when he was once out pheasant stealing, he received a shock which he .will never forget. He had climbed into a tree, and reaching out made a quick snatch at what he imagined to be a young pheasant on one of the branches. So it was, but also it was something more. A large cat who was doing a little poaching on her own account, had already seized the pheasant, and when the poacher made his snatch he brought down such a armful of scratching claws and teeth that he thought he must have caught a vulture instead of a pheasant. When pussy had bitten his nose, and nearly pulled off his ears with her claws, she vanished, leaving him in possession of the pheasant.

Cats who take to poaching do a great amount of harm to game. The keepers never hesitate to shoot a cat seen near the preserves. Also they destroy them with traps—a favourite form being a large flagstone, supported by a baited twig. .Poaching cats, too, are much given to hunting rabbits. They will watch at a rabbit bole for hours at a time and also lie in wait at any gap in the hedge through which hares or rabbits pass. ‘An old gentleman in the West Riding was once out after the harriers, and having occasion to creep through a hedge bottom he took of his hat, so exposing a shiny patch on the top of his bald head. As he went on all fours through the hedge bottom he was alarmed by a large cat springing upon him, and lancerating his head with her claws. She had been lying in wait for ground game at the other side of the hedge, and had evidently mistaken his shiny pate for a new kind of white rabbit. The sportsman who tells this story saya that the old gentleman aqueeled like a rabbit, and has never desired to creep through a hedge bottom since.

In New Zealand, when the gold minors left one goldfield for another they frequently left 'behind them their pet cats. A deserted mining camp was frequently left without a single living occupant beyond half a dozen stray cats. These creatures look to the woods, and for a time lived royally. At that time New Zealand was overrun with the Kiwi, a winglass bird about the size of a barndoor fowl. Though it could not fly the Kiwi could run like an ostrich, and hunting the Kiwi became the regular pastime of the gold-diggers’ abandoned pussy-cats, with the result that the Kiwi soon became extinct.