498 Mr. Rennie on the Contrivances 



to my knowledge of their having made their domicile in the 

 woods, but uniformly sleeping and littering in the least fre- 

 quented barns and other out-houses of farms. This I am in* 

 clined to attribute wholly to their finding such places warmer 

 than any they could discover in the woods, and to the supply 

 of mice they might find there when birds were less plentiful ; 

 for it could not well be traced to their attachment to man, 

 whom they always fled from as fearfully as a fox would do. 



A more particular instance of this once came under my 

 observation. A cat, which had been long remarked as one 

 of the wildest of those which frequented a barn on the borders 

 of a wood in Ayrshire so wild, indeed, as to be seldom seen 

 was, several times during a sharp frost, observed, with no 

 little surprise, to pass and repass into the adjacent farm-house, 

 which it had not for some years been known either to enter or 

 approach. It might have been inferred that it was compelled 

 by hunger, had not this been the best season for catching 

 birds; but, in one of its stealthy visits, it was seen snugly 

 coiled up beside a baby in the cradle, to the no small horror 

 of the mother, who imagined, in accordance with the popular 

 prejudice, that it had come to suck away the baby's breath. 

 All I could say to persuade her of the impossibility of the cat 

 doing this was of no avail, and orders were immediately given 

 to every servant on the farm to kill the poor cat wherever she 

 could be found. Her caution and agility, however, were long 

 successful in saving her ; and though the persecution she 

 thus experienced rendered her, if possible, much wilder than 

 before, yet she was not thereby deterred, not even after being 

 wounded by a pitchfork, and her leg lamed by throwing a 

 hatchet at her, from paying a daily visit to the baby in the 

 cradle, because it was the warmest place within her knowledge ; 

 and, next to food, she considered warmth an indispensable of 

 life. She persisted thus in venturing to the cradle, till she 

 was at length intercepted and killed. 



It is worth remarking, that this cat was a pale tabby, of 

 small size, with a long slender tail tapering to a point ; none 

 of which circumstances agree with the common wild cat (Felis 

 catus, LINN.) found in our mountain woods. The latter has 



