BOBCAT is the name by which the wild cats of the genus Lynx are known in most of the United States, particularly the warmer parts—West and Southwest. Though related to the mountain lion, or cougar, both being members of the same family, the bobcat is a much smaller animal and of somewhat different habits, so far as the selection of prey is concerned. Its larger cousin, the Canada lynx, is found in the northern, more forested, parts of the United States and in Canada. The economic relations of the two are similar, except as forest-dwelling habits are modified by the bobcat's environment of plains and deserts in the Southwest. The bobcat has keen eyesight and a good sense of smell, though the latter is not so acute as in the wolf or the coyote. Most of its hunting for food is done at night, and the animal is aided by sight rather than by scent. The advance of settlement and the occupation of the bobcat's former ranges for stock raising have not so much crowded back this predator as they have given it a new and satisfying provender, particularly in the young of the flocks and herds of the stockman and the poultry of the farmer. Control of its depredations at times becomes necessary to man's economic welfare.