The illustration on the left is a painting from around 1800, showing a Scottish wildcat being hunted by a pack of dogs. You will note the yellow colouration and stripes -hence the "English wild cat" becoming "the Highland Tiger".
Another thing to note is that there is a version from later on colourised a grey-brown but the colouring here is the original.
Note the size of the cat and size of the dogs. Also note that the cat is going for the hounds neck -serious wild cat hunters equipped their hounds with metal studded leather collars to stop them being attacked that way. You will also note that the cat is holding off the pack and the 'hunter' holds back with an axe to despatch the cat if it does not get away.
The fierceness of these large cats was such that even humans could fall victim to their attacks. These cats did not go out of their way to attack people but if you have someone with hounds hunting and cornering you or trying to force you out of a cave (one case notes a hunter who fought he was getting a fox from a cliff side cave (Wales 1880s) but was confronted by a large wild cat -it did not end well) or tries to kill your mate and cubs then all bets are off.
Interestingly supposed zoologists and others writing in the field of 'cryptozoology' have all tried to suggest that the wild cat was an "unknown British species now extinct" or that a real escaped tiger was being described or -as with the Girt dog of Ennerdale- that an escaped (from a zoo or travelling menagerie) was being described because "No known cat in Britain has a yellow fur and stripes". Well, these people rarely do any research since their aim is to make money.
Wild cats are thought to have started breeding with feral domestic cats brought to Britain by the Romans and these imported cats would have been domesticated Felis libyca (North African wild cat). This could have started any time from the 1st century on although I would guess that it would have been much later as domesticated cats would have been more isolated in farming or town areas while the wild cats were still in forests and woods or other wild areas.
It is likely that interbreeding took longer in Scotland where, although merchants may have gifted cats, these would have initially been too few to spread out from towns. That would still give the cats, say, 100 AD to 1900 to interbreed as wild cats (male or female) looked for mates as hunting took its toll in areas. The "Kellas cat", as Di Francis described it, was a black domestic-wild cat hybrid and there are historical records of these showing that they existed for many centuries up until today
The Extinct Fox and Wild Cat Museum has specimens of wild cats c 1830s but it should be noted that the species was on the decline at that point due to hunting and so we are seeing possibly interbred end of species but there should be enough unique DNA to separate it from the "wild tabby" of today which is supposedly a European wild cat but as Europe had a much longer domestic-wild can interbreeding period those in Europe today are far from the original species type.
As with foxes and wolves in Britain becoming separate island species to their West European counterparts after the flooding of the Doggerbank link with Europe, so the wild cats in Britain should have been reflected in Europe. Unfortunately, the lack of interest in searching museum vaults and other collections means that the cat we see today is still considered the original.
The easiest way to find out more and define species we have lost in the UK and Europe is DNA study. As noted, no one is really interested in that and I have been trying to convince labs and universities for a good few years.
