THE INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 249 



The goat, too, on account of its predilection for young trees, buds, 

 and sharp, aromatic herbs, can be kept in great numbers only in those 

 regions in which the injuries inflicted by them are of relatively little 

 importance. It therefore feels more at home in the rocky labyrinths 

 of the Grecian islands, Sicily, Sardinia, and Italy, than in the northern 

 regions. According to the census, Italy in 1863 possessed forty-one 



million goats. 



Of four-footed animals, Europe has received only one further ad- 

 dition the cat. Unlike the dog, it was most probably not a primitive 

 companion of man, but is relatively a late gain. The taming of the 

 animal is a fruit of the religious customs of the Egyptians, who recog- 

 nized the worth of this mouse-destroyer, and permitted divine honors 

 to be paid to it. Its picture, therefore, meets us beside other wonder- 

 ful figures upon numerous Egyptian monuments, and in the tombs 

 whole layers of cat-mummies are sometimes to be found. 



The ancient Greeks were not acquainted with the cat, but the 

 mouse was certainly known to them from the earliest period a fact 

 shown by the name which is common to all the Indo-European lan- 

 guages, and which signifies apparently " thief " and they not seldom 

 suffered so severely under the plague of these pests that whole regions 

 were devastated and in consequence had to be abandoned. For the 

 destruction of the mice they used either the weasel or the marten, 

 which were tamed for this purpose. The weasel, especially, held just 

 the same place among them that the cat now holds among us, and it 

 passed in like manner into proverbs and fables. In Aristophanes, a 

 certain person is summoned to tell a story, and he begins his fable with 



the words 



u There was once a mouse and a weasel." 



That the cat was as little known as a domestic animal to the Ro- 

 mans as it was to the Greeks, is plainly shown by the story of the 

 country and the city mouse, as narrated by Horace, who lived in the 

 time of Augustus. - There is certainly no question that if Horace had 

 known the cat he would have mentioned it in this passage, but no 

 mention of it is made. In the fourth century a. d., we find the cat 

 mentioned for the first time among the domestic animals, and it not 

 only spread abroad among all the European peoples, but was also 

 transplanted to Asia. If Hehn's conjecture be correct, its general in- 

 troduction was occasioned by the irruption of the rat, which seems to 

 have entered Europe in company with the immigrants from Asia. 



Among the Germans this animal was allotted to Freya, whose car- 

 riage was drawn by two cats. At the same time it was regarded as a 

 shrewd, magic-working animal, and it therefore played a leading part 

 in matters of witchcraft, during the middle ages, beside the owl and 

 the bat, in myths that grew plainly enough out of its sneaking move- 

 ment, its preference for the night, its dark fur, and its eyes, which 

 glow in the dark. > Cats guarded secret treasures in mountains and 



