Cornish lynx - in my garden a few weeks ago - read on -

UNNATURAL HISTORY 6 - The story of some massive moggies
by Jonathan Downes
The following article appeared in the now defunct Planet on Sunday newspaper in 1999. Over the seven issues that were published I wrote a column about the stranger aspects of British natural history. For the sake of posterity, and also, I guess because I am quite fond of them, they are republished here for your entertainment...
This is the last of the articles because the one that was in issue 7 was the story of my two-toed amphiuma, which is to be found elsewhere on the website.
Everyone has heard of the Beast of Bodmin, and its cousin on Exmoor. There seems little doubt that small but viable populations of several species of exotic cat are living quite happily in the British countryside. However there are other mystery moggies in Britain as well, and although they do not attract the newspaper headlines of their larger relatives, they still pose a fascinating zoological conundrum.
The British Race of the Forest Wildcat (Felis silvestris) was once found all over the British Isles, but according to accepted belief they had been exterminated over much of mainland Britain during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although British zoologists Langley and Yalden provided specific dates for the extermination of the creature in the four counties of the South-western Peninsula recent research has thrown doubt not only upon their findings but upon the status of the species as a whole.
The taxonomy of the European Wildcat has long been a source of difficulty and confusion. Writing in 1795, in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae - Linneaus included the 'Cat' under the scientific designation of Felis catus. He lived in Sweden, a country where Wildcats are not found, and so he made the erroneous assumption that the domestic cat - a beast which still bears the Latin name coined by Linnaeus, was a domesticated descendant of the European animal. The type description published by Linnaeus was probably that of his own pet 'moggy'.
In 1777 the German naturalist Schreber produced a book called A Natural History of Mammals in which, having had more opportunity than Linnaeus to examine the wild species, he named the European Wildcat Felis silvestris (the Forest Cat). His earlier work had, incidentally followed the nomenclature suggested by Linnaeus.
The Scottish Wildcat was defined in 1907 by the British Museum; the chosen type specimen being an animal killed at Drumnadrochit on the shores of Loch Ness in 1904. Writing in 1994 cryptozoologist Jan Williams made the point that:
"from this point the species 'evolved' by unnatural selection - gamekeepers supplying Wildcats to museums and (...) paid only for the ones which continued to resemble the type specimen".
It is generally believed that F. Silvestris grampia is now confined to Scotland. I have not been able to confirm whether the English specimens which undoubtedly existed into historical times were members of this subspecies which by its very name is a Scottish one. Indeed, it appears that the exact nomenclature of the English Wildcat has never been decided, and I would suggest further research needs to be done.
There have been reports of these animals from the border counties until very recently, but it also appears that they may have survived in the south west of England. Devon naturalist Trevor Beer saw some creatures that appeared to be Wildcats on Exmoor in 1984. Cats which have the appearance of wild-cats have been seen on Haldon Hill and at Holcombe near Dawlish.
In her book 'Living on Exmoor' which was published in 1963, Hope Bourne describes fox sized cats which had a local reputation for ferocity which were living in the area of Room Hill immediately before the first world war.
.She described an animal "about the size of a male fox with & grey or tawny grey pelage marked all over with dark stripes. Its bead seemed very large in comparison with that of a domestic cat, its fangs protruded below its lip, its limbs appeared to be rather long, (especially the hind pair), it walked with a slouching gait and its tail was blunt."
Similar animals have also been reported from the Exeter area. According to a number of witnesses there was a large and thriving population of 'wild cats' which appeared to be at least 50% larger than a normal domestic 'moggy' living wild in the St Leonard's area of the city as recently as the late 1970's. They frequented an area of wasteland, which was at the time, one of the few remaining legacies of Hitler's bombing campaign, although they disappeared after the area was redeveloped in the early 1980's.
On at least one occasion kittens from this colony were adopted by local residents and they appeared to settle in to a life of cosy domesticity with relative ease. One particularly large 'tom' who was described to me as being the dominant animal of the colony reportedly measured over three and a half feet from nose tip to tail tip. This would, by anyone's standards have been a remarkable cat but, as we shall see, this sized animal is not unknown in the annals of the westcountry felidae!
I have a number of records in my files of creatures described variously as '0utsized tabbies', or as 'big grey cats'. The descriptions are of animals which measure between thirty and forty-eight inches in length, (including tail), a size which makes them larger than most feral cats which have been reported but still within the upper ranges of European Wildcats.
I tend to discount the largest animals reported and feel that the sizes in those reports may have been exaggerated by, say ten percent. This would still, however leave us with population of sizeable cats in much of rural Devonshire.
Similar creatures have also been reported from Cornwall. One of our correspondents, who now lives in South Wales, has a cat that he was given when his family lived in Cornwall. He was told, by the animal's original owner that it was descended from a 'Cornish Wildcat'. This of course, may merely have meant that the cat's antecedents were feral farmyard felids, or it may be a clue of a more cryptozoological nature. The photographs certainly show that he is an impressive creature. His owner wrote to me on the 26th October 1996, enclosing the photographs and a hair sample:
'His vital statistics are body length 23 inches, tail length 11.5 inches, total body length 34.5 inches and weight about fifteen pounds. ~ you can see I am not metricated. When we lived close to the sea in Cornwall he would often come home with sea birds he had caught and now hardly a day goes by without a 'present' from him of a vole, shrew, mouse or bird on the front doorstep!'
Another one of his tricks was to be on a rock surrounded by water, we never worked out how he did it as he never appeared to be wet Yet, in spite of all this he is one of the most peaceable cats ever, he often allowed himself to be bullied by cats a fraction of his size and yet he is not very affectionate. Another of his claims to fame is that he survived both barrels of a shotgun at close range and being left to die. On both occasions he dragged himself back home and on both occasions the vet wanted to put him out of his misery, hence he is probably the most expensive cat alive!"
My correspondent went on to note that this remarkable cat also catches rabbits. There has not, at the time of writing been any result from the analysis of the hair samples, although both Mitochondrial DNA and Electron Microscopy tests are planned. The photographs are also unfortunately inconclusive, and do not show an animal which conforms to the traditional wildcat descriptions. Nevertheless, as we have seen, the traditional view of wildcat morphology is open to a certain amount of interpretation.
There is no doubt that there are some extraordinarily large farm cats in Cornwall. I was one of the first investigators at Ninestones Farm on Bodmin Moor. There had been reports of 'panther' and 'lynx' like animals, but some of the farm cats owned by Mrs Rhodes, the farmer were extraordinarily large. One in particular, 'Thomas" was probably the largest domestic cat I have ever seen. Indeed its seems probable that, in the light of the findings of the MAFF report of 1995 "Thomas" was responsible for at least one of the video clips purporting to be of 'The Beast of Bodmin'.
Even now, when Toby, my elderly labrador cross, and I are ambling through the forestry reserves just outside Exeter we catch the odd glimpse of something large, grey and feline moving very fast in the utter peripheral of our vision. These close encounters which never actually happen always remind me of a quote by a character in one of my favourite science fiction novels, who when confronted with the old proverb that "at night all cats are grey" just shook his head sagely and muttered that this was quite untrue. Where cats are concerned, he said, there are an "endless variety".

Gord I'm frightened!