or Zoological Recollections, S27 



-^ The cat is very subject to vomitings: and every one too 

 much addicted to excess of wine knows what is meant by 

 shooting a cat. She has been supposed to be particularly 

 fond of fish, giving rise to the poetical simile, — 



" What female heart can gold despise ? 

 What cat's averse to fish ?" 

 i r Gray, Ode on the Death of a favourite Cat. 



But this is not a probable fact : for if a plate of fish, and a 

 plate of meat, either raw or dressed, be placed before her, 

 she will generally prefer the meat. And it would be a pro- 

 pensity not very natural, as she abhors water, and can in a 

 great measure live without it; and is extremely cautious of 

 wetting her feet. [For well-authenticated instances of cats 

 voluntarily entering water to catch fish, see IV, 430. ; V. 471. 

 716., and the Field Naturalist's Magazine, I. 511.] It is 

 equally erroneous that she is subject to fleas : the small insect 

 which infests the half-grown kitten being a totally different 

 animal, exceedingly swift in running, but not salient, or leaping, 

 like the flea. She is, however, especially the black kind, 

 highly charged with electricity, visible in the dark, when 

 irritated. 



Her attitudes and motions are all of great elegance, in 

 consequence of her being furnished with collar bones; she 

 can, therefore, convey food to her mouth by the paw*, like 

 the monkey, can climb and clasp, strike sidewise, toss her 

 prey upwards, and seat herself on an eminence of very con- 

 fined and narrow surface, as the arm of an elbow chair, or 

 her favourite position, the knee of her master. She is 



three anecdotes of monkeys, not distinguished for their delicacy, proceeds 

 as follows: — " D. Antony Machado de Brito, admiral of the Portuguese 

 fleet in India, told me, that one of these creatures continually troubling 

 him, and breaking all it found in the kitchen, he once, to be even with it, 

 ordered a cocoa nut to be put upon the fire, which sort of fruit the mon- 

 keys are most greedy of, and hid himself to see how that beast would 

 take it without burning his paws. The cunning creature, coming at the 

 usual hour, and finding its beloved food on the fire, looked about, and 

 seeing a cat by the chimney, held her head in his mouth, and made use of 

 her paws to take off the cocoa-nut, and, then cooling it in water, eat it ; the 

 Portuguese laughing to see the cat mewing about all day with the pain it 

 had beenj put to." {Gem. Hindostan, b. ii. chap. 1.) An ancient Latin 

 author, in allusion to this, says : — " Simia quam similis turpissima bestia 

 nobis."— W. T. 



* A cat oVice kept by my father would jump upon one of his shoulders, 

 pass behind his head, and along the arm on the other side, extended, with 

 the milk jug dangling between the finger and thumb, into which puss, 

 standing upon the hand, would dip his paw, get it suffused with milk, and 

 then lick it for his pains.^ — J. D. 



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