324 Extracts from the Minute-Book of the Linnean Society. 



self and family were at tea, a young female cat, which, 

 on account of extreme playfulness, had become a great 

 favourite, was lying on the hearth. She was pregnant 

 for the second time, and had arrived, as nearly as I can 

 recollect, at the middle period of gestation. A servant 

 handing the tea-kettle, or doing some office which led 

 her to pass between the fire and the table, trod very 

 heavily on the creature's tail. She screamed most 

 frightfully, and ran out of the room ; and from the na- 

 ture of the noise which she emitted, it was evident that 

 a considerable degree of terror mingled with the sense 

 of injury. But from a circumstance so extremely com- 

 mon no extraordinary result was expected, and the poor 

 cat's tail was no more thought of until the final period 

 of gestation, when we were surprised with the phaeno- 

 menon which has given occasion to this communication. 

 She dropped five kittens; one of which, exactly re- 

 sembling herself, was apparently perfect ; but the other 

 four had the tail most remarkably distorted. About 

 one third of the length, reckoning from the base, 

 there was a nodus equal in size to a very large pea, or 

 about twice as thick as the tail itself; the remaining 

 portion being turned on one side at an angle nearly ap- 

 proaching to a right angle : and what may deserve no- 

 tice, all of them turned the same way, towards the left 

 side. I was urged to rear one of these as a curiosity; 

 but, conceiving that it might grow up rather a disgust- 

 ing object, I had the whole destroyed ; preserving only 

 the one which appeared to be perfect. That one 1 

 kept about a month ; when it was seized, as well as 



the 



