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PART III. 



COLLECTANEA. 



Art. I. Zoology. 



The domestic Cat diving for Fishes. — Sir, In reading that delightful little 

 work of Mr. White's, The Xatiiral History of Se/borne, the propensity of 

 'cats for fish, and their repugnance to wetting their feet, are remarked by the 

 intelligent author. An anecdote or two of these beautiful but maligned 

 quadrupeds, proving their piscivorous natures in the one case, and in the 

 other a strong natural antipathy overcome by a still more powerful pro- 

 pensity, will perhaps be amusing to some of your readers, who, like myself, 

 have a regard for every thing " which lives, and moves, and has a being." 

 In the centre of my father's garden was a fish-pond, stocked with various 

 kinds of fish. Many a time and oft have I witnessed puss (and a very 

 pretty tortoiseshell puss she was, and a great favourite withal) watching at 

 its brink for its finny inmates, and on their appearing at the surface darting 

 on her prey, and in spite of the wetting and ducking she encountered, 

 bringing them in triumph to the pond's edge, and regaling on the delicious 

 fare. This sport, I believe, she continued in the enjoyment of till the day 

 of her death ; and so amused were we with her angling powers that no 

 obstruction was ever thrown in her way. The pond, moreover, was not, as 

 some may imagine, sloping in its bottom and picturesque in its appearance, 

 but it was completely a cockney pond in its tout ensemble, octangular in its 

 shape, of precise equality in its depth, with a pavement smooth and regular 

 both in the sides and base ; therefore, before this puss could gratify her taste, 

 a plunge was to be taken which was sufficient to make the stoutest cat's 

 heart tremble. 



The other anecdote relates to a cat of more extraordinary acquirements, 

 which belonged to one of my workmen. In a large and deep pond at my 

 premises in the Green Lanes, a stock — not of fish, but of rats — had 

 accumulated, the destruction of which was undertaken by this uncommon 

 cat. He was daily in the habit, for nine or ten years, of stationing himself 

 on the margin of the water, and of jumping into the liquid element on the 

 appearance of his game. A day seldom closed unsuccessfully, and he has 

 been seen and known to catch and bring from the watery deep four of these 

 vile vermin betwixt sunrise and sunset. As I said, this amusement was 

 kept up by him for the space of nine or ten years, in fact until his rat- 

 catching powers deserted him ; and when his teeth became all extracted in 

 the performance of his daily feats, his master had him killed, that the 

 miserable death of starvation might not await him. This cat was truly a 

 sportsman, and pursued the sport solely from the love of it; he caught his 

 game with avidity, but never eat a morsel ; so that the pleasure of the chase 

 alone had charms enough in his mind to vanquish one of the strongest 

 antipathies of his nature. 



Should these trifling tales of the members of a race hated and perse- 

 cuted without cause by some, and too much loved and fondled by others. 



