THE CAT 15 



whiskers round his mouthy and if he opens his mouth 

 you will see his sharply pointed cat-like teeth. 

 Should you happen to be calling upon him at his 

 dinner hour, you will see him enjoy his meal of fish. 

 If you ask the keeper he will tell you that the sea- 

 lion^s body is as warm as yours, and that there is 

 nearly the same difference of temperature between 

 your body and the air you are walking about in, as 

 there is between that of the sea-lion's body and' the 

 water he is swimming in so gracefully. But what an 

 ugly, awkward fellow he is on land ! No cat is ugly 

 or awkward, but she is a poor hand in the water, 

 though tigers are said to be excellent swimmers. 



It seems ridiculous to say that the sea-lion's flippers 

 or his tail are like the cat's legs and tail, but if you 

 look at the skeletons in your nearest museum you 

 will see the building plan is the same. Skeletons 

 and bones are thought to be very dry, uninteresting 

 things, and so they are if we attempt to study them 

 by themselves, but, when looked at as the structure 

 on which the living machine is worked, they live too, 

 and we are fascinated to find out what variation of 

 her plan Nature has adopted to fit the particular 

 form of the animal, we are studying, to the surround- 

 ings in which it is destined to pass its life. We 

 know that the building plan of all animals with 

 bones is exactly the same, and that the difference of 

 form is produced only by varying the size and shape 

 of some of the bones, and sometimes by leaving some 

 out. 



We have never used the cat except as a means of 

 ridding our houses of mice, and sometimes, in rare 



