I never caught a glimpse of the black tufts at the tip of its ears, nor of the distinctively stubby tail of Europe'sthird-largest land predator. The Beast of Booton, as the lynx on the loose in Norfolk in 19 91 was popularly known, was shot by a gamekeeper. The corpse was only discovered when he was asked what he kept in a big chest freezer in an outbuilding. "Oh, just some pigeons and a lynx," he replied. The fate of that escapee mirrored the experience of the whole species in Britain. The Eurasian lynx once roamed our woodlands from Scotland to Cornwall. But, despite its extraordinary stealth as a solitary ambush hunter par excellence, this Labrador-sized cat was, like the brown bear and grey wolf, driven to extinction here.A lynx bone found in North Yorkshire has been dated to as late as AD 450, while a seventh-century lullaby hails the lancing of "wild boar, lynx and fox". In 1577, the Englishman William Harrison wrote that there were once "many lions" in northern Scotland. By his day, however, despite it posing little or no threat to humans, the lynx was already gone for good.
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机译：我从没见过它的耳尖上的黑色簇绒，也从未见过欧洲第三大陆地掠食者鲜明而粗的尾巴。布顿野兽（Beast of Booton）于19 91年在诺福克（Norfolk）的松树天猫座而广为人知，它是由一名游戏管理员射击的。尸体只有在被问到他在附属建筑的大胸部冷冻室中存放了什么时才被发现。 “哦，只有一些鸽子和一只山猫，”他回答。那位逃犯的命运反映了英国整个物种的经历。欧亚山猫曾经从苏格兰到康沃尔漫游我们的林地。但是，尽管这种拉布拉多大小的猫作为一种出色的孤独伏击猎手而具有非凡的潜伏性，却像棕熊和灰太狼一样在这里灭绝了。北约克郡发现的一只山猫骨可追溯到公元450年，而七世纪的摇篮曲则赞誉“野猪，天猫和狐狸”的出没。 1577年，英国人威廉·哈里森（William Harrison）写道，苏格兰北部曾经有“许多狮子”。然而，到了他的生活，尽管对人类几乎没有威胁，但山猫已经永远消失了。
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