of the northern species. The so-called lynxes of Bacchus were generally represented as resembling leopards rather than any of the species now known by the name. Various fabulous properties were attributed to the animal, whatever it was, by the ancients, that of extraordinary powers of vision, including ability to see through opaque substances, being one; whence the epithet “lynx-eyed,” which has survived to the present day.
Lynxes are found in the northern and temperate regions of both the Old and New World; they are smaller than leopards, and larger than true wild cats, with long limbs, short stumpy tail, ears tufted at the tip, and pupil of the eye linear when contracted. Their fur is generally long and soft, and always longish upon the cheeks. Their colour is light brown or grey, and generally spotted with a darker shade. The naked pads of the feet are more or less covered by the hair that grows between them. The skull and skeleton do not differ markedly from those of the other cats. Their habits are exactly those of the other wild cats. Their food consists of any mammals or birds which they can overpower. They commit extensive ravages upon sheep and poultry. They generally frequent rocky places and forests, being active climbers, and passing much of their time among the branches of the trees. Their skins are of considerable value in the fur trade. The northern lynx (L. lynx or L. borealis) of Scandinavia, Russia, northern Asia, and till lately the forest regions of central Europe, has not inhabited Britain during the historic period, but its remains have been found in cave deposits of Pleistocene age. Dr W. T. Blanford says that the characters on which E. Blyth relied in separating the Tibetan lynx (L. isabellinus) from the European species are probably due to the nature of its habitat among rocks, and that he himself could find no constant character justifying separation. The pardine lynx (L. pardinus) from southern Europe is a very handsome species; its fur is rufous above and white beneath.
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| From a drawing by Wolf in Elliot’s Monograph of the Felidae. |
| European Lynx. |
Several lynxes are found in North America; the most northerly has been described as the Canadian lynx (L. canadensis); the bay lynx (L. rufus), with a rufous coat in summer, ranges south to Mexico, with spotted and streaked varieties—L. maculatus in Texas and southern California, and L. fasciatus in Washington and Oregon. The first three were regarded by St George Mivart as local races of the northern lynx. A fifth form, the plateau lynx (L. baileyi), was described by Dr C. H. Merriam in 1890, but the differences between it and the bay lynx are slight and unimportant.
LYON, MARY MASON (1797–1849), American educationalist,
was born on the 28th of February 1797 on a farm near Buckland,
Franklin county, Massachusetts. She began to teach when she
was seventeen, and in 1817, with the earnings from her spinning
and weaving, she went to Sanderson Academy, Ashfield. She
supported herself there, at Amherst Academy, where she spent
one term, and at the girls’ school in Byfield, established in 1819
by Joseph Emerson (1777–1833), where she went in 1821, by
teaching in district schools and by conducting informal normal
schools. In 1822–1824 she was assistant principal of Sanderson
Academy, and then taught in Miss Zilpah P. Grant’s Adams
Female Academy, in Londonderry (now Derry), N.H. This
school had only summer sessions, and Miss Lyon spent her
winters in teaching, especially at Buckland and at Ashfield,
and in studying chemistry and natural science with Edward
Hitchcock, the geologist. In 1828–1834 she taught in Miss Grant’s
school, which in 1828 had been removed to Ipswich, and for two
years managed the school in Miss Grant’s absence. In 1828–1830
she had kept up her winter “normal” school at Buckland,
and this was the beginning of her greater plan, “a permanent
institution consecrated to the training of young women for
usefulness . . . designed to furnish every advantage which the
state of education in this country will allow . . . to put within
reach of students of moderate means such opportunities that
none can find better.” She was assisted by Dr Hitchcock,
and her own mystical enthusiasm and practical common sense
secured for her plan ready financial support. In 1835 a site
was selected near the village of South Hadley and Mount Holyoke;
in 1836 the school was incorporated as Mount Holyoke Female
Seminary; and on the 8th of November 1837 it opened with
Mary Lyon as principal, and, as assistant, Miss Eunice Caldwell,
afterwards well known as Mrs J. P. Cowles of Ipswich Academy.
Miss Lyon died at Mount Holyoke on the 5th of March 1849,
having served nearly twelve years as principal of the seminary,
on a salary of $200 a year. From her work at Holyoke sprang
modern higher education for women in America.
See Edward Hitchcock, Life and Labors of Mary Lyon (1851); B. B. Gilchrist, Life of Mary Lyon (Boston, 1910).
LYON, NATHANIEL (1818–1861), American soldier, was born in Ashford, Connecticut, on the 14th of July 1818, and graduated at West Point in 1841. He was engaged in the Seminole War and the war with Mexico, won the brevet of captain for his gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco, and was wounded in the assault on the city of Mexico. In 1850, while serving in California, he conducted a successful expedition against the Indians. He was promoted captain in 1851, and two years later was ordered to the East, when he became an ardent opponent of “States’ Rights” and slavery. He was stationed in Kansas and in Missouri on the eve of the Civil War. In Missouri not only was sentiment divided, but the two factions were eager to resort to force long before they were in the other border states. Lyon took an active part in organizing the Union party in Missouri, though greatly hampered, at first by the Federal government which feared to provoke hostilities, and afterwards by the military commander of the department, General W. S. Harney. On Harney’s removal in April 1861, Lyon promptly assumed the command, called upon Illinois to send him troops, and mustered the Missouri contingent into the United States’ service. He broke up the militia camp at St Louis established by the secessionist governor of Missouri, Claiborne F. Jackson, and but for the express prohibition of Harney, who had resumed the command, would have proceeded at once to active hostilities. In all this Lyon had co-operated closely with Francis P. Blair, Jr., who now obtained from President Lincoln the definitive removal of Harney and the assignment of Lyon to command the Department of the West, with the rank of brigadier-general. On Lyon’s refusal to accede to the Secessionists’ proposal that the state should be neutral, hostilities opened in earnest, and Lyon, having cleared Missouri of small hostile bands in the central part of the state, turned to the southern districts, where a Confederate army was advancing from the Arkansas border. The two forces came to action at Wilson’s Creek on the 10th of August 1861. The Union forces, heavily outnumbered, were defeated, and Lyon himself was killed while striving to rally his troops. He bequeathed almost all he possessed, some
$30,000, to the war funds of the national government.
