Back in 2005, Maine Biologist(and friend of this blog) William Krohn compiled the writings of Manly Hardy, a mid and late 19th Century Maine resident who was one of the preeminent Dealers in Animal hides and raw furs............Hardy1832-1910) traveled extensively into Maine's interior Forests as well as up and down its coastline............After retiring from business , Hardy devoted his time to writing about Maine's early game laws and wildlife.........He saw firsthand how our largest Carnivore and Hoofed Browsers were disappearing from our Northern Woodlands as the Industrial Revolution engulfed the Eastern States............Below is his commentary on the Lynx

CANADIAN LYNX

all words below written by:
Manly Hardy

"The Canadian Lynx, often called lucivee(loupcervier), has a foot as large as a man's hand, covered
with wooly hair, like the foot of a snowshoe rabbit"









"With us(in Maine), the lynx is rarely found near settlements or near the seashore(found in interior woodlands)"

"In my youth, I remember a hunter named A.P. Willard, bringing in some twenty at one time......He said that he chooked nearly every one of them(save the largest) with his bare hands"

"When I was 14, I killed one and he was as large as they grow in Maine, growing 27 pounds.  Newspaper reports drastically exaggerate the size of  lynx.
"

"One Winter, I had access to 10 of them and the biggest one topped out at 25 pounds"

"As for 30 years, I was shipping furs to London and NY, I have have chance to handle hundreds of
them, and I think 30 pounds the extreme weight of a Maine lynx.
"

"I have had skins from the North Side of New Brunswick(Canada) which were larger than any taken in Maine and some might weigh 35 to w0 pounds(As many of you know, there is a law in nature that states that animals tend to be larger the farther north they are found in their geographical distribution, likely having to do with larger body size helping survival in cold regions and it requiring larger home territories to secure enough prey)"

"The only case I ever heard of where a lynx or a wildcat(bobcat) ever really attacked a man was one my father told me of, when a man was tracking a deer in heavy snow, the lynx jummped down from a tree and bit the mans coat on the side. Every year there are accounts in newspapers of lynx and bobcat attacking men. In no case have any of my men had a fight with them. They often sit in logging roads refusing to move..........My men easily kill them with axes or clubs if they do not move"

"I have never known a lynx to fight a dog unless cornered and with no way out"

"They usually travel alone or at most  in two's or three's"

"I have lived and traveled with 60 of the best hunters and trappers in Maine and I have never have heard of any of them being bitten or scratched by either a lynx or a bobcat"

"A lynx is the easiest kille animal I know of except for a snowshoe rabbit"

"While reluctant to fight, both lynx and bobcats will kill sheep and deer"
"

"It is a rare thing to actually see a lynx in the woods unless treed by a dog or a trap. They are the easiest to trap of any of the fur bearing animals"


"Both lynx and bobcats live mostly off of rabbits.........They sneak up on them and pounce rather than running them down. Both cats kill deer the same way...............While the deer are lying down, they sneak up and jump on their neck, hold them down and bite their throat"

"Lynx will  kill some partriges and some other small mammals.


"The lynx seems to be deficient in brains.He will often sit on a road and wait until men on horses get close to him, but he always runs. He always seems ugly enough to fight but he never dares to. He will blunder into any type trap if he happens to be hungry; at other times he will pass well baited traps and take no notice"

"Mr. R. MacFarlaneformerly chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company, speaks of their regularly increasing and decreasing in numbers about every ten years all over the immense territory covered by that Company, so that while the average annual collection was 20,298 for 25 years, it was once as low as 4,448 and once rose to 76,556"

"We also find here in Maine and the Provinces(Canada) that the number of lynx varies greatly. In the spring of 1861, my partner brought in 34 skins. It was only a few years later that I did not get a single skin form Maine and it was several years more before I saw one taken in our State"

"The Lynx inhabits the deep woods while the wildcat(bobcat) lives mostly near the settlements and probably the great majority of bobcats now in Maine are not 5 miles from some house.
"

"I have never known any case where a lynx ever attempted to jump towar a man or ever tried to follow a human being. They are shier than a house cat, which we often in the woods catch sight of house cats that have run wild.
"

"Although in many localities wildcats must be on the same ground as lynxes, I have never seen any sign of their hybridizing"


"As neither lynx nor wildcats weigh much more than twice as much as a house cat, and it is extremely rare to find one which weighs three times as much, it has always been a mystery to me why any man should be afraid of either, especially as I can find no reliable instance of either ever injuring a man."