Report from Chris Smith and David Walker
The Tiger of the North
From the Daily Express, 14 th January 1927
Reports of big cats in Scotland are not new as the following report from the Daily Express on the 14 th January 1927 demonstrates. We are grateful to David Walker for the scanned report.
Mystery 'Tiger of the North'
Lynx Trapped by Scottish Farmer
Raids on Flocks
From the Daily Express,14 th January 1927
Scottish farmers, mystified by raids on their flocks, have found that their sheep have been killed by a lynx, 'the tiger of the north'.
Sheep and goats were attacked in the wild mountain districts of Inverness-shire and traps were set to catch the mysterious marauder. Tracks like those of a gigantic cat were found in the soft mud of the moorland (word illegible).
Shepherds reported seeing an animal 'like a leopard but without spots'.
(text missing....)
The body was sent to the London Zoo where the body was identified as that of a Lynx; thick-set, with tufted ears and powerful forelegs and paws, such an animal as could hold at bay a pack of hounds.
(...the article continues...)
Two other specimens have been killed in Scotland recently. How they reached there is unknown, but it is believed that they must have escaped from some travelling menagerie.
Daily Express,14 th January 1927
The following is an extract from Lo! By Charles Fort written in 1931
Mountainous districts of Inverness-shire, Scotland [90/91] - mysterious footprints in bogs - sheep and goats slaughtered. "A large, fierce, yellow animal of unknown species" was seen by a farmer, who killed it. More mysterious tracks in the bogs, and continued slaughter - another large, fierce, yellow animal was shot. Soon a third specimen was caught in a trap. "The body was sent to the London Zoo, where it was identified as that of a lynx." See the London Daily Express, Jan. 14, 1927.(30) There is no record of the lynx, as indigenous to Great Britain. "It is found, in Europe, in the Alps, and the Carpathians, and more often in the Caucasus. The last specimen, in France, was killed 100 years ago."
I have a feeling of impiety, in recording this datum. So many of our data are upon a godness that so much resembles idiocy that to attribute intelligence to it may be even blasphemous. Early in this theological treatise we noted a widespread feeling that there is something of the divine in imbecility. But, if these three lynxes were teleported, say from somewhere in the Carpathians, there was good sense to this teleportation, and there was a good shot this time, because they landed in a lynx's paradise. There is no part of Great Britain that is richer in game than is Inverness-shire, and the country abounds with deer and sheep. However, if into this Eden were shot an Adam and two Eves, and these two Eves cats, we may think of this occurrence with a restored piety.
30. "Mystery tiger of the North." London Daily Express, January 14, 1927, p.3 c.7. Only the third specimen was trapped and shot, in this article, which states: "Two other specimens have been killed in Scotland recently. How they reached there is unknown, but it is believed that they must have escaped from some travelling menagerie."
Lo! by Charles Fort, 1931
Eyewitness Accounts
From Cat Country, The Quest for the British Big Catby Di Francis, David and Charles, 1983
"The Daily Express reported on 14 January 1927 that, following a number of livestock being killed and strange footprints being discovered, a farmer killed a 'large, fierce yellow animal of unknown species'. However, the slaughter continued. Another animal similar to the first was shot, then a third was trapped. 'The body was sent to the London Zoo where it was identified as that of a Lynx'. However, London Zoo has no record in its files of receiving the animal, and one wonders, anyway, just what was sent in identification The creature was shot in Inverness-shire and without freezing the body would be in a rather advanced state of decomposition on arrival. If it was just the skin that was dispatched to London, a true identification was unlikely. Big cats are being seen today in Inverness-shire, but although they sometimes resemble lynxes, they cannot be identified as that species"
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