STRANGE ANIMAL-FRIENDSHIPS. 183 



so unceasing!}'- that she was sent on to the new abode. Her first object 

 was now to get somebody to interpret her desires. At last her master 

 divined them, and started off with her to the barn. As soon as they 

 were inside, the cat went to the horse's stall, made herself a bed near 

 his head, and curled herself up contentedly. When Mr. Huntington vis- 

 ited the pair next morning, there was puss close to Narragansett's feet, 

 with a family of five beside her. The horse evidently knew all about 

 it, and that it behooved him to take heed how he moved his feet. Puss 

 afterward would go out, leaving her little ones to the care of her friend, 

 who would every now and then look to see how they were getting on. 

 When these inspections took place in the mother's presence, she was 

 not at all uneasy, although she showed the greatest fear and anxiety if 

 any children or strangers intruded upon her privacy. 



A gentleman in Sussex had a cat which showed the greatest affec- 

 tion for a young blackbird, which was given to her by a stable-boy for 

 food a day or two after she had been deprived of her kittens. She 

 tended it with the greatest care ; they became inseparable companions, 

 and no mother could show a greater fondness for her offspring than she 

 did for the bird. 



Lemmery shut up a cat and several mice together in a cage. The 

 mice in time got to be very friendly, and plucked and nibbled at their 

 feline friend. When any of them grew troublesome, she would gently 

 box their ears. — A German magazine tells of a M. Hecart who placed a 

 tame sparrow under the protection of a wild-cat. Another eat attacked 

 the sparrow, which was at the most critical moment rescued by its pro- 

 tector. During the sparrow's subsequent illness its natural foe watched 

 over it with great tenderness. — The same authority gives an instance 

 of a cat trained, like a watch-dog, to keep guard over a yard containing 

 a hare, and some sparrows, blackbirds, and partridges. 



A pair of carriage-horses taken to water at a stone trough, then 

 standing at one end of the Manchester Exchange, were followed by a 

 dog who was in the habit of lying in the stall of one of them. As he 

 gamboled on in front, the creature was suddenly attacked by a mastiff 

 far too strong for his power of resistance, and it would have gone hard 

 mth him but for the unlooked-for intervention of his stable-companion, 

 which, breaking loose from the man who was leading it, made for the 

 battling dogs, and with one well-delivered kick sent the mastiff into a 

 cooper's cellar, and then quietly returned to the trough and finished his 

 drink. In very sensible fashion, too, did Mrs. Bland's half-Danish dog 

 Traveler show his affection for his mistress's pet pony. The latter had 

 been badly hurt, and, when well enough to be turned into a field, 

 was visited there by its fair owner and regaled with carrots and other 

 delicacies ; Traveler, for his part, never failing to fetch one or two 

 windfall apples from the garden, laying them on the grass before the 

 pony, and hailing its enjoyment of them with the liveliest demonstra- 

 tions of delight. 



