BOBBY

THE WILDCAT

by Floyd Bralliar 

MAYLAND is a little village on the highest part of the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. The Cumberlands differ from most other mountains in that what we think of as the mountains are merely the connecting link between a comparatively low valley and a flat tableland several miles wide and some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet higher. Mayland is on this table­land. It is hard to realize when at Mayland that one is on the mountains, for there are no moun­tains or even hills in sight.

Near the village is a lake with some seven miles of shore line, and just below this lake the little creek that carries away the overflow begins to descend and soon flows through a gulch with shelving rocks on its sides.

There is a summer camp for girls, Camp Nakanawa, on the banks of this lake, and I have had the privilege of spending the past six summers as nature counselor at this camp. The first summer I spent at camp I became acquainted with Bobby and her family, and I have known her more or less intimately ever since.

I first became aware of Bobby's existence in this way. The girls like to make rolls of their blankets, take plenty of food, and hike off into the woods and spend the night. At such times they build a huge bonfire and sit around it, either telling or listening to stories till late at night, when they roll up in their blankets and sleep on the ground about the fire. Breakfast is cooked, over the campfire and the party returns to camp in time for dinner. When the weather is good, such parties go out once or twice every week. Of course several counselors always go with such parties, and as I had the nature work, it usually fell to my lot to be one of these.

One night Mrs. Bralliar and I were in charge of a party of thirty or more small girls from ten to twelve years old. The weather had been a bit unsettled, and there was a possibility of rain before morning. So we went by boat to the lower end of the lake, and carried our packs down the little creek to where the rocks overhung sufficiently to keep even so large a party as this dry, even in the most driving rain.

We started our fire, and every one began gather­ing dead wood for the night. Many hands make quick work, so it was not long till enough wood was gathered, and everyone was lying about the roaring fire, looking up at the stars and listening to stories.

Some of the little girls had never spent a night in the woods before and were nervous, especially when some night bird screamed nearby or some helpless animal shrieked in pain and terror when caught by some one of the many hunters that live by eating their fellows creatures of the forests.

But the insects hummed drowsily on all sides, and the creek gurgled a lullaby as it slipped away through the darkness a few yards away. Small bodies grow tired and small eyes; grow heavy under such conditions. Before eleven o'clock the cry, "where am I to sleep?" became insistent.

A few clouds still hung in the west; and I at first thought it would be well for every one to sleep under the overhanging rocks. One little girl crawled under farther than the rest and announced she had found a hole running under the rocks and that she knew something lived in it, for she could see the tracks where it had gone in and out. Did I suppose she had best sleep so close to this hole? And what did I suppose lived in it?

I told her that undoubtedly a woodchuck or some equally harmless animal lived there, but that I would see what I could learn. So I took my flashlight and examined the entrance to the hole and was astonished to find the tracks had been made by a "bobcat," and that this bobcat surely had kittens in that hole for their tracks were also to be seen in the dust in front of it.

It was too late to move camp, and to tell the children what I had discovered would have frightened them so much no one would have slept. I knew the bobcats were undoubtedly much more frightened because we were so near than even my children would have been had they known what I knew.

Half-wild hogs had undoubtedly slept under this ledge the winter before; so the ground under the rocks was very dusty, and this gave me an inspira­tion. I told the children there might be fleas in this dust, and that even if there were not fleas the dust would get into their blankets and it would be hard to get it out again. I advised every one to sleep outside between the fire and creek.

I was pretty sure it would not rain before morning; and even though it should, there would be plenty of time to get under the rocks when it came. Besides it is much nicer to be able to sleep where one can look up and see the stars shining. Every one acted on the suggestion, and I built a better fire than usual, putting on plenty of big wood so it would burn brightly all night. Then I lay down nearest the hole, and we all went to sleep. Before going to sleep, I carefully smoothed the dust in front of the hole, so I could tell in the morning if anything had gone in or out during the night, but nothing did so. Till this day I have never told any of the camp girls how near they slept to a wildcat's lair.

It was some time before I heard or saw anything more of those cats. Then one day the night watch asked me to go with him around behind the kitchen to examine some strange tracks about the garbage can. They were Bobby's tracks. There was no doubt of it, for they surely were cat tracks and they were much too big to have been made by house cats.

The night watch knew what they were, but he wished to learn if I would I know. He was a pretty good woodsman himself, and often tried to find something I would not know. He said Bobby had been coming to this garbage barrel for several nights, and that she was not only eating what she wished herself but was carrying food into the woods to her kittens, which she always left just around the point of the lake a few rods away. He cautioned me to keep still about this lest it frighten the girls. Bobby would not hurt anyone in the least unless they wounded her or caught either her or her kittens. We both knew there is no way of telling what a bunch of girls may try to do, and we did not wish to take any chances.

It was only a few days till the moon was full, making the night almost as light as day. That night, as soon as the girls were all in bed and asleep, Bobby came down the path that leads around the point of the lake back of the kitchen, her kittens following not far behind. Several times she stopped and snarled and scolded at them, plainly telling them they could go no farther. Every time she did this, they would stop and slink back a little; but when she started on, they followed again.

I do not know whether their mother had not been carrying them all the food they wished, whether they were especially hungry that night, or whether they had just reached the age when they felt it safe to be disobedient. I only know that the extra noise and snarling caught the ear of the big German police dog belonging to the director of the camp; He came on the run, barking lustily, and rushed directly at the kittens. The mother cat was on him in an instant; and in less time than I can write it, he was running for his bed on the wigwam porch, howling instead of barking. But for all the commotion, no one was awakened; or if they were, they thought it was, "only that dog barking again.

Did Bobby and her family run away into the woods when the dog left them? Far from it. They all marched Indian file up the path leading back to their home. After that they came almost every night, and so far as anyone saw Bobby never raised any more objection to her kittens accompany­ing her, and the camp dog never offered any more objection to their coming on the premises. One experience was enough for him. No one had asked him to drive this whirlwind of teeth and claws out of the camp, and evidently he decided not to do so as long as he was not asked. He did not even bark at them, possibly fearing someone might notice them if he did so, and ask him to drive them away.

Bobby was a bobcat; the common wildcat of the Southern mountains. They are called bobcats because their tails are no more than blunt stumps two or three inches long. They look as though their tails had been cut short when they were kittens. Our Southern bobcats are a reddish gray in color but are marked with dark spots and stripes. They are tall for cats, and seldom weigh over eighteen or twenty pounds.

In spite of the march of civilization, bobcats are still found over practically all of the United States where there is sufficient timber or brush for them to hide in. They are timid, and do not like to live in thickly settled districts; yet only a few weeks ago I saw one crossing the Dixie Highway about eleven o'clock at night less than a mile from the city of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I got so close to him and the light from my automobile blinded him so much that we missed running over him only by a few feet. Without doubt these animals live in many parts of our country, undiscovered. Within the past year, I have seen three crossing well traveled highways by night.

Things ran on as usual throughout this camp season, Bobby and her family feeding nightly at the garbage can. This must have been a real blessing to quails and other birds that live on the ground. For once they could have a little peace and safety, while their families were growing large and strong enough to take care of themselves. The wildcat family preferred to feed from the table of their traditional enemy, man, to hunting for a living.

One evening, just at dark, some of the girls came to me considerably excited. They said some woman was either crazy or lost on the other side of the lake, where a point of land runs in toward the camp. I went with them, down to the dock where we could hear plainly, and listened. We did not have long to wait. Soon a shrill, weird,  wailing scream came over the water. They wished me to take a boat and go with them to hunt the poor woman at once, and became almost indignant at my delay in starting.

Finally, I told them they were listening to the wailing of a wildcat. They were reluctant to believe it till finally, after scream­ing two or three more times, it yowled enough like a cat so that they were satisfied. I am glad to say none of them were frightened, and several of them proposed our going to hunt it, dark as it was. But I told them it would be a fruitless chase. The cat would slink away in the darkness, and there was not the least chance of our being able to see it. We had no dog and only dogs can trail animals in the dark.

I stayed at camp a few days after the girls left, and of course there was now no garbage can at which Bobby and her family might feed. I soon began occasionally to find feathers on my strolls through the woods, sad proof of the fate of some bird that had been surprised by these cats.

When winter came, Uncle Alvin Phillips and the other local trappers got out their traps and began the serious business of matching wits with the wildings. I suppose it is legitimate, and even desirable, for some one to do this, else the "var­mints would increase too rapidly”, but my sympathies have always been with the poor creatures who get trapped and who must wait in fear and agony for hours, or even days, for the trapper to come and put an end to their sufferings.

Uncle Alvin had been finding the tracks of this family for some time. He knew where they lived and set about to catch them. Wildcats do not have a keen sense of smell, and they are not very cunning. Only those who through some fortunate combination of circumstances live to be old enough to learn wisdom by experience are hard to trap.

Uncle Alvin caught two of the kittens that winter, but not the old cat. The next summer she raised her kittens under the same ledge of overhanging rocks; but this time she hunted down the creek. If she came into the camp for food, I never knew it. But I did find abundant evidence that she was still alive and doing business by catching sleeping birds.

Since that time the camp garbage has been kept in a closed house and removed every evening about sunset, so any prowling animal would find no food were it to visit the camp at night. But last summer Bobby was seen in the woods on the shore of the lake only a few rods from camp. Her large size and apparent age made her identity pretty certain, for even in the mountain country wildcats are not plentiful. Once in a while I hear some of her family snarl in the darkness near a campfire, and I occasionally hear their wail; but this is usually in the fall after camp closes.

There are several fox hounds kept in the little town of Mayland, and they are taken on a hunt every few nights; but either they will not trail a wildcat or Bobby manages to outwit them. Only a few weeks ago she was very much alive, and I trust she may live neighbor to the camp for years to come.

The Bobcat (Lynx rufus)

THE bobcat is so named from its stubby tail, not over three inches long. It is more widely known as the wildcat and as such has a great reputation as a fighter. But it never attacks man' unless wounded or cornered so it can see no other way of escape. Then its extremely quick motions, combined' with its sharp teeth and its strong, sharp claws, make it a formidable foe indeed.

It ranges throughout most of North America, south of Canada, except where there is not enough woods or brush in which to hide its home. It is taller and longer-legged in proportion to its weight than most of the cat family. It varies somewhat in color and size in different parts of the country.

The larger, northern form is often called the catamount, and is credited with the ability to kill deer. It is said sometimes to be destructive to lambs and young pigs. But the ordinary bobcat feeds largely on rabbits,' birds, and other small animals it finds on the ground. Like our domestic cat it is a great mouser and, undoubtedly, does considerable good in keeping those pests under control. Aside from catching a few chickens, it does man little or no harm.

It has little or no ability to follow a trail, so hunts by sight and sound. It is expert at climbing trees, but seldom does so unless to escape an enemy. Like most of the cat family it is afraid of a dog, and will always run from one unless it is necessary to fight to protect its young. But when it must fight, very few dogs can kill it.

In color it is a yellowish or brownish gray, spotted, with the, black spots on the head and flanks often becoming short stripes. The short ears are tipped with black tassels and the tail is banded and tipped with black.

A fair average length from the end of the nose to the end of the tail is twenty-eight inches, and twenty pounds is a fair average weight. They rear from three to five kittens at a time. The mother hides her nest from her mate and carefully guards her kittens till they are of considerable age; for if the father or any other male should find them he would promptly kill them, probably eating their heads. In this they are like the house cat, the panther, or mountain lion, and many others of the cat family.

The bobcat resembles his northern cousin the Canadian lynx in many ways, but is only about two thirds as large.