CATS AND THEIR FRIENDSHIPS. 



93 



Fig. 2.— Wild Cat (Felis catus.) 



compounded from two words that give the meaning of "wavy 



tail." 



The Latin name of the cat tribe (Felis) appears to have been 

 originally applied to the weasel and other mousers, and after- 

 ward to the wild cat. The word catus or cattus came into nse 

 in about the fourth century, and is found first in the agricultural 

 writer, Palladius, who recommends that cats be kept in artichoke- 

 gardens for protection against mice and moles, and remarks that 

 men had previously been served for this purpose by weasels. The 

 name catta is found later in 

 the Greek church histo- 

 rian, Evagrius Scholasticus, 

 about a. d. 594. Historical 

 inferences have been drawn 

 from the absence of the re- 

 mains of cats in the ruins of 

 Pompeii, and from the fact 

 that the name common to 

 all the other Romance lan- 

 guages does not occur in 

 Wallachian. It is concluded 



that the domesticated animal had not become common when Pom- 

 peii was destroyed, in a. d. 79, or when Dacia was isolated from 

 the rest of the Roman world by barbarian conquest, in the third 

 century. Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins infers, from his researches in the 

 caves in which the Celts took refuge from the Saxons, that cats 

 were unknown in Great Britain before about the year 800. 



Cats easily commended themselves as efficient vermin-destroy- 

 ers to such extensive grain-raisers as the ancient Egyptians ; and 

 a people so ready to deify everything needed little prompting to 

 put them in their pantheon. They may also have made them- 

 selves useful in killing snakes, an occupation in which, if the sto- 

 ries are true, they sometimes become very expert. Rengger, who 

 has written of the mammals of Paraguay, declares that he has 

 more than once seen cats pursue and kill snakes, even rattle- 

 snakes, on the sandy, grassless plains of that land. " With their 

 rare skill," he says, " they would strike the snake with their paw, 

 and at the same time avoid its spring. If the snake coiled itself, 

 they would not attack it directly, but would go round it till it be- 

 came tired of turning its head after them j then they would strike 

 it another blow, and instantly turn aside. If the snake started to 

 run away, they would seize its tail, as if to play with it. By virtue 

 of these continued attacks they usually destroyed their enemy in 

 less than an hour, but would never eat its flesh." 



Cats are represented on some of the Egyptian monuments as 

 accompanying their masters on hunting expeditions. In a wall- 



