TRAVELLED BY CATS. 203 



ship^ had performed the voyage, and returned to the 

 wharf whence she set out. In all this long peregrina- 

 tion, she did not forget the home that had nomished 

 her, nor the haunts to which she was attached. She 

 took the earliest opportunity of making her escape, 

 and finding her way through the intricate turnings and 

 windings of the metropolis, arrived safe at her former 

 residence, to the great surprise of all the family. 



Had you or I been hastily carried, for the first 

 time, through London, we could not have traced back 

 our course, even the next day ; whilst this cat must 

 have remembered every turning, at the distant period 

 of many months. 



Mr. Craven relates another incident,* very similar 

 to this. He knew a female cat belonging to Mrs. Far- 

 quarson, which was removed from Sampford Hall, near 

 Saffron Walden in Essex, to Yosely Bridge in Haimp- 

 shire, and, impelled by that invincible attachment to 

 places, which is one of the characteristics of the cat 

 kind, returned, as is supposed, through London, to the 

 protection of her kind benefactress at Sampford Hall. 



These feats are so far beyond any sagacity tliat I 

 possess, that I am quite impatient to have my curio- 

 sity resolved upon the subject. Pray tell Mr. Palmei 

 he is my oracle in natural history, and that I request 

 he will explain in what this strange faculty consists. 



* On the authority of Mr. Arthur Young. 



