A free (speech) text-based web-browser that runs on the following platforms:

Of course, you can get the source from http://lynx.isc.org/current/, or at one of the numerous sites listed at http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx/sources.html, and port it over to the platform of your choice.

Being text-based, Lynx does not support Javascript, ECMAScript, Java, images, or any thing like that. Such things should not interfere with Lynx' rendering of a page, but will not be displayed.

The official (as far as I can tell) page for Lynx is http://lynx.browser.org/. Lynx' main help file is available at http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx/lynx_help/lynx_help_main.html. Binaries for numerous platforms can be sought at http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx/binaries.html and http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx/platforms.html. http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx.html has plenty more Lynx information.

For those of you with time to burn, why not check out Zeigen's Ode To Lynx at http://www.batch.com/ode-to-lynx.html?

For people who for some reason think a graphical browser is the way to go, check out http://www.emf.net/~estephen/goodlynx.html.

http://ezone.org:1080/ez/e9/articles/zeigen/lynxrant.html is some what interesting, though a bit long.

Also lengthy, but interesting, is An Early History of Lynx at http://www.cc.ukans.edu/~grobe/early-lynx.html

Hey, web authors! How about making your pages compatible with Lynx? Sound fun? Then see http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx/author_tips.html.

And if those were not enough, http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/lynx/ has some interesting muck.

I hope you found this to be useful. Considering how many hours I spent on this write-up, you #*(%ing well better have.

The deodorant of choice among teenage males. The Staff Of Life for smelly students, to quote the Emperor. Native to the British Isles. Seems identical to a product known as AXE in mainland Europe.

Lynx comes in a variety of scents which may seem similar to the untrained nose, but to the skilled nasophile they present a broad spectrum of aroma.

Tempest - Haven't seen this in ages. Could be discontinued. Can't remember what it smells like.

Oriental - Another of the forgotten fragrances. I have a vague recollection of a spicy smell.

Java - Probably the strongest odour. You can really smell the propanol.

Africa - My personal favourite. I am reliably informed that it smells like rhinoceros sweat.

Atlantis - Rather popular variety. Faint peachy odour.

Inca - Dull, inoffensive, workaday deodorant. Too feminine for my tastes.

Voodoo - Rather masculine smell. Instigated the famous advertising campaign (see below).

Apollo - Fruity. Deodorants should not be fruity. Avoid.

Phoenix - Almost indistinguishable from Atlantis. The cans have the same blue and white colour scheme as well. I suspect trickery afoot.

Gravity - This one's new. Smells a bit odd. Somehow manages to exude cyberpunk.

Lynx also claims, via advertising, to have an Effect. Although this effect is never explicitly stated, it seems to involve hot naked nubile lovin'. Empirical evidence for the Effect is, unfortunately, lacking.

Research is proceeding.

Lynx is probably the most popular text browser. Its competitors include w3m, links, telnet, and nc.

What it supports (the notable things):

  • Tables. However, once a table gets too wide, it goes into ugly mode, where it is flattened out.
  • Frames. The links to frame pages are displayed as follows:
    FRAME: foo.html
    FRAME: bar.html
  • Cookies. You can actually configure a lot for the cookies. Right now, I have mine set up so that it will read the persistent cookies from one file, and write to another. This way I do not accumulate any cookies that I do not want. While lynx has a system of Deny/Ask/Allow for each domain, I cannot find a way to get it to save the information between sessions. Instead, I could set the reject and accept variables, but that's kinda inconvenient.
  • Client-side image maps. These are displayed as [USEMAP: imgname.jpg]. If you hit enter on the link, lynx will give the list of all the possible links in that area. It makes the web equivalent of "Where's Waldo" quite easy, usually.
What it does not support (just some things I've noticed):
  • Server-side image maps. Because of the way these are implemented, lynx is only capable of complaining that it does not support them.
  • Style sheets. The style sheets are really a graphical browser thing. Fortunately, since they mainly concern layout, the pages that use CSS are still readable.
  • Embedded images, javascripts, MPEGs, audio, etc. You can, however, download the files, and use a separate viewer. Lynx even has the ability to automatically start the correct viewer based on the MIME type. On the upside, this means that popup ads do not work, and inline ads are just not ads anymore (unless they have ALT tags). Best of all, this means that some sites just don't have their normal effect.

Lynx is a genus of cat native to the northern hemisphere. There are four extant species, two in Europe and two in North America, though one of the European species is also found in western Asia. They are members of the subfamily Felinae, which encompasses the small cats. The Eurasian lynx, largest of the lynx species, are largest of all small cats, after the cougar (Puma concolor) and the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus).

Eurasian Lynx

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is the largest and most widespread species. Male Eurasian lynx range from 80 to 130cm in length, and can weigh up to 30kg. Females tend to be slightly smaller. They have gray to tawny fur, with black spots or short bands. Their spots tend to be muted, fading into the surrounding fur color. Like all lynx, they have a prominent ruff of long fur around their face and long tufts of fur on their ears. Perhaps the most distinctive feature is the very short black-tipped tail, seldom more than 15cm in length.

Eurasian lynx take a wide variety of prey, ranging from mice to reindeer, but by far the most common prey items are lagomorphs like the European rabbit and the Cape hare. Birds, especially ducks, are somewhat commonly taken as well. Larger prey are seldom taken when rabbits are available, but unlike the Iberian, and to a lesser extent Canadian lynx, populations of Eurasian lynx do not seem to fluctuate with the rabbit population.

The Eurasian lynx has no predators besides man over most of its range, and few serious competitors. Among the few that it does have are the gray wolf, the red fox and the European wildcat. It is considered a threatened or endangered species across much of Europe, but it remains rather common in Russia. Since the Russian forests are believed to hold as much as 90% of the total Eurasian lynx population, it is classified as a near-threatened species. It is rarely tamed and kept as an exotic pet.

Like all lynx, they are very elusive and hard to observe in the wild, though their distinctive appearance makes them hard to mistake for any other cat. In the southern parts of its range, the jungle cat and caracal are occasionally seen. Both cats have tufted ears, very prominently in the case of the caracal, though that is almost the extent of the similarity. The jungle cat is considerably smaller, only about twice the size of a domestic cat, and lacks any kind of barred or spotted markings. The caracal is similar in size to the Eurasian lynx, though it generally appears slimmer due to its short fur, but its uniform rusty or buff color is distinctive. Both similar species have long tails, however.

Iberian Lynx

The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) - not to be confused with the Siberian lynx, which is a subspecies of the Eurasian - is the rarest of all cats. Current estimates hold its total population at less than 300, and possibly as few as 90. They once ranged over most of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, and much of France. Over the last two centuries hunting, habitat destruction and most importantly the sharp decline in the European rabbit population have shrunk their population. As such, the species quite probably faces extinction.

Physically, the Iberian lynx closely resembles its Eurasian counterpart, though they tend to be somewhat smaller. Further, their spotted patterning is much more distinct, rather like that of the cheetah or serval. Also, they tend to inhabit open scrubland, unlike the Eurasian, which prefers forests.

They prey almost exclusively on the European rabbit, with other prey being taken much less often. In recent years, with rabbit populations massively depleted by myxomatosis, they have taken to preying on hares, rats and occasionally larger animals like foxes, deer or mouflons.

Other than the occasional vagrant Eurasian lynx, there are no similar species within the Iberian lynx' range.

Canadian Lynx

The Canadian lynx, Lynx canadensis, also occasionally known as the North American lynx, is native to Canada, Alaska and the northern continental United States. It was originally regarded as a subspecies of the Eurasian lynx, but recent DNA analysis places it firmly in its own species. It is physically distinctive, as well, having dense, silvery-brown fur with white accents. While Canadian lynx kittens have black spotted patterning like the Eurasian and Iberian lynxes, adults hardly ever retain this coloration. It is somewhat smaller than the Eurasian lynx, though it still gets up to around 24kg, especially in the eastern parts of its range.

Their very dense fur makes the facial ruff somewhat less noticeable, as it tends to get lost in the fuzz. They also have furred feet, an adaptation for walking in the deep snow common over much of their range. This adaptation is shared with the Eurasian lynx, but not the Iberian or (generally) the bobcat. Their ear tufts are also frequently more prominent than any of the other lynx. While all lynx have asymmetric legs, the rear being longer than the front, this is most noticeable in the Canadian lynx.

Their prey varies over their range. In western Canada, they prey almost exclusively on the Snowshoe hare, and their numbers fluctuate with the hare population. In the southern and eastern parts of their range, they tend to prefer birds, squirrels, rats and not infrequently larger prey, including caribou and white-tailed deer. This is likely because they are among the largest predators in the eastern part of their range, while in the west, they face extensive competition from the cougar and the gray wolf. The American black bear does occur in the east, as do some packs of wolves, but they don't frequent the same areas as the lynx.

They are very rarely preyed upon by cougars, wolves and brown or black bears, but their only serious threat over most of their range is man, as the majority of would-be predators consider them too large and dangerous to warrant the effort necessary. While the Canadian lynx has been driven out of some of its former range by a combination of hunting and urban development, overall its numbers are considered stable, and it has begun to make a resurgence in the northern USA since the late 1970s. They are occasionally sighted near rural and suburban neighborhoods, though some of these reports may be misidentifications of the more common bobcat. On rare occasion, Canadian lynxes have been tamed and kept as pets. They are not known to have ever attacked people without provocation.

Like their Eurasian kin, they are difficult to observe in the wild, as they are extremely stealthy and tend to avoid human contact. Much of their range is also shared with the bobcat, making positive identification difficult except at close range. Further confounding matters is the fact that the Canadian lynx and bobcat have been known to crossbreed in the wild!

Bobcat

The last species of lynx is the bobcat, Lynx rufus, occasionally known as the Bay Lynx or American Lynx. (The latter synonym is deprecated due to confusion with the Canadian lynx). It is the smallest, most aggressive and most common member of the genus, ranging over most of the USA except for the Midwest, much of southern Canada and northern Mexico, including Baja California. They range from 70 to 100cm in length, and rarely exceed 15kg in weight, making them slightly more than twice the size of a typical domestic cat. They have yellow to brownish fur, with black spots, similar to the Iberian lynx, though on average darker. Northern subspecies often have the silvery-brown fur coloration of the Canadian lynx. They have short fur and usually lack the 'snowshoe' feet of the Canadian or Eurasian lynx, and their ear tufts are the least prominent of all lynx species, going so far as to be virtually absent in some. In general, specimens from the northern part of their range have longer fur, more prominent ear tufts and generally more closely resemble the Canadian lynx, while southern specimens have shorter fur and tufts.

They are surprisingly aggressive hunters, occasionally taking difficult prey such as small dogs, skunks, sheep and rarely even cougar kittens. However, like most lynx, they prefer lagomorphs. The Cottontail rabbit, jackrabbit and snowshoe hare are their most common prey. Gray squirrels, Norway rats and cotton rats are reasonably common prey items, as well. In some cases, bobcats will take white-tailed deer fawns, and rarely even adults, but this is rare.

While bobcats tend to be rather evasive of humans, they have no particular aversion to human habitation, and will hunt in suburban areas. In more wild areas, however, they tend to steer clear of the territories of other predators like wolves, coyotes and foxes. They also assiduously avoid the territories of the two large cat species that overlap their range, the cougar and the jaguar (Panthera onca). Their relationship with similar-sized felines, the Canadian lynx in the north and the jaguarundi (Puma yaguarondi) in the south, is less clear. They are known to frequent the same hunting grounds as the Canadian lynx, and occasionally to even mate with them. Bobcat-jaguarundi interaction is almost entirely unknown.

Bobcats are fairly numerous over much of their range despite some pressure from hunting and trapping, as well as accidental deaths from roadkill or poison, and their numbers are relatively stable. They are rarely preyed upon by cougars and jaguars, and even more rarely by brown bears, and bobcat kittens are occasionally taken by golden eagles. The majority of them dwell in woodland habitats, but they are very adaptable, often living in mountains, swamps and plains, occasionally even city parks. It tends to avoid deep snow and tundra, however.

Like all lynx, bobcats are hard to observe in the wild. In the northern part of their range, the presence of Canadian lynx, and occasional Lynx canadensis × rufus crossbreeds makes identification difficult even when they are seen. Footprints are easily confused with those of other cats, especially large domestics.

Lynx (?), n. [L. lynx, lyncis, Gr. ; akin to AS. lox, G. luchs, prob. named from its sharp sight, and akin to E. light. See Light, n., and cf. Ounce an animal.]

1. Zool.

Any one of several species of feline animals of the genus Felis, and subgenus Lynx. They have a short tail, and usually a pencil of hair on the tip of the ears.

Among the well-known species are the European lynx (Felis borealis); the Canada lynx or loup-cervier (F. Canadensis); the bay lynx of America (F. rufa), and its western spotted variety (var. maculata); and the pardine lynx (F. pardina) of Southern Europe.

2. Astron.

One of the northern constellations.

 

© Webster 1913.

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