CHAP. I.] 



INTBODUCTOEY. 



the date 1239, and by a similar charter given by Eicliard the Second 

 to the Abbot of retorborough. » 



The Wikl Cat is now (thanks to the destruction of our forests, 

 the introduction of fire-arms, and the over-zeal of game-keepers,) 

 extinct in England, and perhaps in Wales also, though it lived 

 here till within fifty, and in Wales till M'ithin twenty years ago. In 

 Ireland it seems never to have existed, and the stories we read of 

 Irish wild cats probably refer to the progeny of domestic cats run 

 wild. This is the opinion of Dr. Hamilton, F.Z.S., who has paid 

 great attention to this subject, and carefully collected and investigated 

 the evidence as to the existence of the wild cat in Ireland. In Scotland 

 it is still far from uncommon, and is especially frequent in Inverness, 

 Eoss-shire, Sutherland, and on the west coast of the Highlands, where 

 the recent increase of rabbits (animals so useful to it as good food,) 

 seems to have occasioned some increase in the number of wild 

 cats. These animals exist also in Skyc, but not in the Western 

 Isles. 



On the continent the wild cat is found in Southern Paissia, and 

 the adjacent parts of Asia, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Germany, 

 Dalmatia, Spain, Switzerland, and, though now very rare, France.* 

 It does not appear to exist in Norway or Sweden. 



§ 4. Our Domestic Cat seems to have come to us (like our other 

 domestic animals) from the East, and is probably a descendant of 

 the old domestic cat of Egypt, which, as the granary of the ancient 

 world, might well have been the country in which the animal was 

 originally tamed. In the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum 

 is an excellent painting of a tabby cat, which seems to be aiding a 

 man who is capturing birds. It is mentioned in inscriptions as early 

 as 168-1 B.C., and it was certainly domesticated in Egypt thirteen 

 hundred years before Christ. The earliest known representation of 

 the cat as a domestic animal and pet, is at Leyden in a tablet of the 

 18th or lOth dynasty, wherein it appears seated under a chair. 

 In Egypt, it was an object of religious Avorship and the venerated 

 inmate of certain temples. The goddess Pasht or Bubastis, the 

 Goddess of Cats, was, under the Roman Empire, represented with a 

 cat's head. A temple at Beni-Hassan, dedicated to her, is as old as 

 Thothmes IV. of the 18th dpiasty, 1500 B.c.f Behind that temple 



* One wild cat at the least has been 

 killed in France between 1815 and 1830. 



t Dr. Birch has kindly informed me 

 that the earliest representation of the cat, 

 with which he is acqnainted, the date of 

 which is certain, is on tomb No. 170 

 of the Berlin ilnseura, apparently of 

 about 1600 B.C. ; but that it also figures 

 on a tablet which from its style appears 

 to be two hundred years older — as ]iart 

 of the name of a woman, "Main" or 

 cat. It also appears in hunting scenes 

 of the 18th dynasty, and in rituals 

 written under that dynasty, but pro- 



bably repetitions of a much earlier text. 

 It is mentioned in tlie 17th chapter of 

 the Eitual, and the coffins of the lltli 

 dynasty are inscribed with that chapter, 

 Avhicli, according to Lepsius, would carry 

 us back to about 2-100 B.C. In a copy of 

 the Eitual of B.C. 1500, its 33rd chapter 

 has the text, "thou ha.st eaten the rats 

 liatefiil to l!a (the Sun), and thou feedest 

 on the bones of the impure cat." In 

 Egypt an animal, thougli sacred in one 

 city, might be regarded ns impure in 

 another cit}'. 



