thin layer of muscular fibres it is made to curve
backward, and receive sounds from the rear.
Although a cat cannot lick its face and head,
it nevertheless cleans these parts thoroughly.
In fact, as we often observe, a cat licks its right
paw for a long time, and then brushes down
the corresponding side of the head and face, and
when this is accomplished it does the same with
the other paw and corresponding side. Grass
is very needful to cats. The food and prey
they eat, often disorder the stomach. On such
occasions it eats a little grass, which, however,
goes no further than the fauces and commencement
of the æsophagus; these are irritated
by the jagged and saw-like margins of the blades
of grass; and this irritation is, by a reflex action,
communicated to the stomach, which by a
spasmodic action rejects its vitiated secretion.

The cat, like all other animals, is most sensitive
to the great talisman we call kindness, and
expresses its wants, confidence, and gratitude,
equally as much as, if not more than, the dog.
It will fawn, rub itself against, and mew to,
any member of the family it lives with, and
will indicate its comfort and contentment by
purring. If ill-used, however, it becomes
exceedingly shy and diffident, and if once it has
had cause to mistrust a person it rarely and
with difficulty regains confidence in that person.

The origin of the domestic cat is considered
by some, to be the wild cat of the European
forests, but some zoologists still hold that the
parent stock is undiscovered. Others think it
came to us from Egypt, and afterwards
occasionally bred with the native wild cat. This
last is the opinion of that high authority Sir
William Jardine, who thinks we are indebted to
the superstition of the ancient Egyptians for
having domesticated the species. "The wild
cat is now rarely found in the south of England,
and even in Cumberland and Westmoreland its
numbers are very much reduced. In the north
of Scotland, and in Ireland, it is still abundant."
(English Cyclop., Art Felidæ.) As to fossil cats,
it is stated that the first traces of large fossil
cats have been hitherto found in the second, or
verioscene period of the tertiary formations.
There are no less than four species of these
great cats, some as large as a lion. Fossil
remains of a feline animal about the size of a wild
cat have also been found. One of the oldest
specimens found in this country is part of a
lower jaw, from the Cave of Kent's Hole,
Torquay, now in the British Museum.

It is pleasant to cat-fanciers to meet their
favourites all over the world, north and south,
and to find their memorials in the literature of
many nations. In Mr. Dasent's Popular Tales
from the Norse, there are two stories, entitled,
The Cat on the Doorefell, and Lord Peter: the
latter the original from which our well-known
Puss in Boots is derived. Not a few
celebrated men have been fond of cats, though only
an instance or two can be given here. It is
related of Mohammed that once when his cat was
asleep on a part of his dress, he cut the part off
when he wanted to get up, rather than disturb
her. Fine old Samuel Johnson used to go out
and buy oysters for his pet cat, thinking that
the feelings of his servant might be hurt if sent
on such an errand. It is difficult to explain,
with the doctor's fondness for cats, how it
was that he omitted to mention them expressly
amongst the inmates of the Happy Valley, and
did not enumerate a liking for them as being
among the good qualities of Rasselas, Prince of
Abyssinia.

Regarding the attachment of cats to places,
the following remarks of the late Rev. Cæsar
Otway, in his lecture on the Intellectuality of
Domestic Animals, before the Royal Zoological
Society of Ireland, some years ago, deserve
attention. "Of cats," he says, "time does not
allow me to say much, but this I must affirm,
that they are misrepresented, and often the
victims of prejudice. It is strictly maintained
that they have little or no affection for persons,
and that their partialities are confined to places.
I have known many instances of the reverse.
When leaving, about fifteen years ago, a glebe-
house to remove into Dublin, the cat, that was
a favourite with me and with my children, was
left behind in our hurry; on seeing strange
faces come into the house, she instantly left it,
and took up her abode in the top of a large
cabbage-stalk, whose head had been cut off, but
which retained a sufficient number of leaves to
protect poor puss from the weather; in this
position she remained, and nothing could induce
her to leave it, until I sent a special messenger
to bring her to my house in town. At present I
have a cat that follows my housekeeper up and
down like a dog; every morning she comes up
at daybreak in winter to the door of the room in
which the maid-servants sleep, and there she
mews until they get up." It must be remarked
here that the way in which some people, when
removing, leave their cats behind to shift for
themselves, is shameful. It is cruel to throw
an animal upon its own resources which has
always been accustomed to be provided for.

Those who are interested in anecdotes of the
instinct, sagacity, mind, and affections of
animals, may be referred, amongst the various
books written on this subject, to one lately,
published by the Rev. F. O. Morris, called
Anecdotes in Natural History; also, to the same
writer's Records of Animal Sagacity and
Character; with a Preface on the Future Existence
of the Animal Creation.

Bewick, in his chapter on cats, says:
"Frequent instances are in our recollection, of cats
having returned to the place from whence they
had been carried, though at many miles'
distance, and even across rivers, when they could
not possibly have any knowledge of the road
or situation that would apparently lead them to
it. This extraordinary faculty is, however,
possessed in a much greater degree by dogs; yet
it is in both animals equally wonderful and
unaccountable. In the time of Hoel the Good,
King of Wales, who died in the year nine
hundred and forty-eight, laws were made as well
to preserve as to fix the different prices of