Of the other wild beasts of this hill-district, the commonest is that known to the inhabitants as the _loup-cervier_,--a name oddly enough misconstructed by a writer on Canadian sports into "Lucifer." This is the true lynx,--a huge cat with long and remarkably thick legs, paws in which dangerous claws are sheathed, and short tail. Its principal prey is the common or Northern hare, which abounds in these regions: but at times the _loup-cervier_ will invade the poultry-yards; and he is even held to account, now and then, for the murder of innocent lambs, and the disappearance of tender piglings whose mothers were so negligent as to let them stray alone into the brushwood. These fierce cats have been killed, occasionally, quite close to Quebec. When thus driven to approach populous districts, it must be from scarcity of their accustomed food; for they are usually very savage and ravenous, when found in such places. I know an instance, myself, in which a gentleman of Quebec, riding a little way from the town, was suddenly pounced upon and attacked by a _loup-cervier_, near the Plains of Abraham. He struck the animal with his whip several times, but it persisted in following him, and he got rid of it only by putting spurs to his horse and beating it in speed. The animal was killed soon afterwards, near the same place. I had heard of another variety of wildcat, seen at rare intervals in the same districts. The _habitant_ is rather foggy on the subject of zoology in general, and my attempts to obtain a satisfactory description of this animal were futile. Some of the definitions of this rare _chat-sauvage,_ indeed, might have answered for specifications of a griffin, or of a vampire-bat. At last, one day, when walking about in the market-place at Quebec, I saw a crowd assembled round a gray-clad countryman, who presided over a small box on which the words _Chat-Sauvage_ were painted. Now was my time to set the question at rest. I invested sixpence in the show. When a good number of sixpences had been paid in, the proprietor opened his box, out from which crawled a fat, familiar raccoon, apparently as much at home in the market-place as he could have been in the middle of his native swamp. And this was the mysterious "wild-cat" about which I had asked so many questions and heard so many stories!