Pennsylvania wild cats

Hunters specializing on wild cats were never numerous, consequently the roster of celebrated Pennsylvania cat hunters is not a long one. Most cats, as before stated, have been taken in traps, depriving the sport of its real zest. Except in winter time, when the country is open, the wild cat is difficult to locate. Its coloring blends with rocks and branches; it is quiet and unobtrusive in the extreme. Dr. B. H. Warren, now Director of the Everhart Museum at Scranton, in his valuable treatise, “Enemies of Poultry,” published at Harrisburg in 1897, thus describes the “favorite haunts” of the cats. These consist, he says, of “forests, rocky ledges, briary thickets, slashings and bark peelings strewn with decaying logs, fallen trees and brush piles, grown up with rhododendron (buck laurel).” At night the wild cat, like the panther, is much in evidence. A. R. Sholter, a young hunter of Weikert, Union County, describes the nocturnal cries of wild cats answering one another—one on Paddy’s Mountain and the other on the White Mountain, the valley of the Karoondinha reverberating with the savage love notes. Professor Emmons, in describing the panther, says: “Though it will not venture to attack man, yet it will follow his track a great distance; if it is near the evening, it frequently utters a scream which can be heard for miles.” J. W. Zimmerman and others who have been followed at night by wild cats report the same habit, though the cat’s cry is much fainter than that of felis couguar. Friends of Clem. Herlacher claim for him the distinction of being one of the most famous cat hunters in Pennsylvania in present or former times. They aver that he killed fifty Canada Lynxes, at the recital of which record the modest Nimrod “just whittles,” taking pains to remind his friends that he has slain half a hundred wild cats, some of them after spirited combats. But in his hunting days in Clearfield County he surely killed many catamounts. Ranking high in the lists of cat hunters is Sol. Roach, who hails from Windber, Somerset County. Roach is accredited with killing half a hundred wild cats, six of them in one week, at the Bear Rocks, at the head of Beech Creek, in Centre County. John P. Swope, the Huntingdon County trapper, has probably taken more cats than any other hunter of the present day in Pennsylvania. He is credited with having trapped at least 500 cats, sometimes thirty in one season. C. E. Logue, in connection with his duties as gamekeeper of Otzinadison Park in Clinton County, has trapped probably 100 wild cats, some of them large specimens. Phil. Wright enjoys the distinction of having killed more wild cats than any hunter in Southern Pennsylvania. This Nimrod has taken at least 100 cats of various sizes. W. H. Workinger has taken many cats in the Seven Mountains. This hunter, who resides at Milroy, Mifflin County, in January, 1916, caught two cats, one weighing sixty pounds, the smaller one thirty pounds. The big cat measured 37½ inches from nose to root of tail; the tail measured 6½ inches. “France” Hower, who was accidentally shot in a fox-trap last summer, was a terror to the wild cats of Jack’s Mountain. In his long career as a hunter he probably killed fifty of these animals. George Potts, of Millersburg, Berks County, was for years the leading cat hunter of the Blue Mountains. Between dogs and traps and still hunts he undoubtedly killed over one hundred Bay Lynxes and Blue Mountain Cats. Abe Simcox and his son John killed nearly half a hundred cats along the south slope of the Sugar Valley Hill in Clinton County. David A. Zimmerman and son Jake killed twice that number in eastern Sugar Valley and the White Deer Narrows. Earl Motz, “the schoolboy hunter” of Woodward, Centre County, has killed many wild cats in the Pine Creek Hollow. E. N. Woodcock and Leroy Lyman, noted Potter County hunters, undoubtedly killed over one hundred wild cats apiece. Dr. W. J. McKnight, of Brookville, in his “Pioneer Outline History of Northwestern Pennsylvania,” says: “The catamount is larger than the wild cat. They have been killed in this region six and seven feet long from nose to end of tail. They have tufts on their ear-tips, and are often mistaken for panthers. George Smith, a Washington Township early hunter, who resided in the wilds of Elk County until his death in 1901, killed in this wilderness five hundred catamounts and six hundred wild cats.” Bill Long, the “King Hunter” of Jefferson and Clearfield Counties, who died in 1880, is mentioned by Dr. McKnight as having killed in Pennsylvania five hundred catamounts and two hundred wild cats. His son, Jack Long, who died at his home, two miles from DuBois in 1900, killed, according to a statement made by him to Dr. McKnight, “wild cats and catamounts without number.” E. H. Dickinson, pioneer hunter of McKean County, killed a number of Canada Lynxes, or catamounts, during his early days in the Northern Pennsylvania wilderness. He died in 1885, aged 75 years. With his son, C. W. Dickinson, he helped kill his last catamount in November, 1867. In commenting upon the Canada Lynx, Dickinson is quoted thus by S. N. Rhoads: “We have a cat in McKean County yet that is called a lynx, because of its size and color. Some of them will weigh as high as forty-four pounds. But they are a darker grey than the lynx. I believe they are a cross between the lynx and the common wild cat.” The true lynx is a silent animal, not given to whining or screaming like the wild cat, except when badly wounded. Rhoads states that the early Swedish settlers on the Delaware called the lynx the “Warglo,” or wolf-lynx, and the wild cat the “Kattlo,” or cat lynx. Among the Pennsylvania Germans the lynx was called the “Harsh Katz,” and the wild cat the “Wild Katz.” The French in Clearfield County, in the Loup Run Country, now corrupted into “Loop” Run, who came mostly from Picardy, called the lynx or catamount the Chet Cervier and the wild cat the Chet Savage. No list of Pennsylvania cat hunters would be complete without a mention of Sam Motter, better known as “California Sam.” He was left a fortune by an uncle who went to California in 1849. Sam Motter’s specialty, as long as the supply of cats lasted on the head of McElhattan Run, in Clinton County, was catching these animals alive with his bare hands. His dogs would trail the cats to their dens, where Motter would dig them out, and with deft movements seize them by the throats. He sold the cats at good prices to zoos, shows, hotels and fanciers. Robert Karstetter, of Loganton, Clinton County, often used his coon dogs to trail wild cats with considerable success. Dan Long, who killed the last wolf in Berks County, in Shubert’s Gap in 1886, killed many wild cats and Blue Mountain cats during his eventful career as a hunter. In the county records of Berks County, Lynx Rufus is classed as a “catamount,” and the Blue Mountain cat as “wild cat.” During the years 1885-1893, inclusive, bounties were paid on thirty catamounts and wild cats in Berks County. Of these eleven were classed as “catamounts,” the heavy type of Bay Lynx. The Canada Lynx has not been observed in Berks County for many years. The Seneca Indian doctors used the fat, blood and excrement of wild cats as a cure for divers maladies of mankind, including baldness, gout, the falling sickness and shrunken sinews. They recommended coats and leggings of cat fur (worn fur inward) for various aches and pains in bones and joints. Wild cats will breed in captivity if given a large enclosure, but kill their young if they are born in close confinement. A “breeding cage” should contain running water, trees to climb on, and much dense foliage. It should be wired, of course, on top, to prevent the agile animals from climbing out. Wild cats in captivity prefer as food the entrails of animals and fowls, chicken heads, cow and horse heads, fish heads, berries, potatoes, grass, bugs and grubs, but be sure that they get plenty of fresh water. They often become friendly and playful, and will have as much enjoyment out of a ball of catnip as a tame “tabby.”

“California Sam” gives these quaint views concerning the Pennsylvania wild cat:

“It appeared to me an opportune time to write a few lines on the wild cat to clear up in the minds of the younger generation some of the stories that have been told to me when but a boy, some hair-raising tales of the monster ‘catamount,’ ‘wild cat,’ ‘bob cat.’

“Now let me say I live in the southeastern part of Clinton County, Pennsylvania, and in my fifty years of travels in the forest, so well I became acquainted with the cat that I could communicate with an old bore cat. This is what he once told me: ‘My mate met with a sad failure when she jumped in Sam Motter’s face. Although Motter is only a small man, my spirits dropped out of my long legs when I saw the ease with which he handled his 80-pound pack, and it occurred to me that my little 25 pounds of nerve and sinew would count little in case of any serious trouble with Mr. Motter. I therefore got out of his way. I wish to say to the younger sportsmen that my breed of cats do not attack men under any circumstances when we can get away. In fact, we do not like men at all, and I have heard old hunters say, when talking over their campfire, that as many years as they had been in the hills they never had seen a mean, quarrelsome cat, and they wondered where they kept themselves. We wild cats have no special range, but come from the highest peaks to the lowest bottoms in the day time and sleep in some dense thicket or in some cave or under some rock where the sun does not penetrate. As cool dusk comes on we prowl softly about, looking for lazy snowshoe rabbits or some grouse or field mice. Many an unsuspecting brood or aged drumming cock have I devoured as the light grew dim in the spring evening. It is very amusing to sit and watch an old cock grouse, as he swells and walks along his log. And when he has his thoughts full of his sweetheart and begins to drum, I just make three jumps and then with one stroke I crush the life and conceit out of him. Of course squirrels, small birds and even fish are all acceptable when they are foolish enough to come my way. I am also very fond of the remains of deer or other dead animals when killed by hunters. When I am angry I don’t stand with my ears pitched forward like a horse, neither do I show my teeth and growl. When I get mad I lay my ears well back, just as any other cat does, and the madder I get the lower I lay them, producing a snaky expression. In order to get any large and satisfactory photos of me you must either tree me or catch me in a trap.’

“So I will close my quotation. Oh, how dear to my heart is my old hunting coat, my old shooting coat that has worn me so well, for weeks at a time in all kinds of weather, and if it could talk, many’s the tale it would tell!”

GIVE THE WILD CATS A CHANCE.