Bobcat

Review bycanaryswear· 2026-11-04

The bobcat is of smoky yellow, dark yellow back, with blackish tips to its fur; of white belly; it is white-bellied, like flecks of cotton, like carded cotton. Its belly is spotted with black, marked like an ocelot, blotched like an ocelot. [Its fur is] soft, soft, very soft; dark, blended here and there, much blended, with brown. It is small and squat, small and round [of body], massive, heavily fleshed. It is large-headed, with droplet-shaped ears, round-faced, snubbed of muzzle, spiny of tongue. Very high-pitched is its voice when it howls. Very agile is it, a true flyer. It bounces, it flies. Its food is flesh. And this bobcat is absolutely uncanny in its service to [other] wild animals.1 And thus it performs its task. If it sees any living thing, perhaps a deer or a man, then it quickly hides itself behind any tree or tangle of shrubs. There it crouches. And if [the victim] comes to it, it quickly attacks. It passes its tongue over the eyes [of the victim]—flicks it over its eyes. And the deer, or the man, is at once blinded, so that he can no more help himself. And then it breaks [the victims’s] neck. And the brute then howls, screams, and sounds out loudly. Thus it informs the [other] wild animals that it has made a catch. Then the wild animals come to eat it. And when they have come, then they drink [the victim’s] blood. And when they have finished its blood, they suck at its flesh. But some only suck its blood; afterwards they eat its flesh; they tear it to pieces.