our Domestic Animchls. 315 



in my opimon, to be applied to the cat, and not to a species of 

 Mustela, although Phaedrus * has, on this occasion, translated 

 the word aM^go^ by that of Mtistela. 



La Fontaine, indeed, who has translated ^sop, makes a true 

 cat the hero of his apologue, and it is a somewhat remarkable 

 thing that the French poet should have better determined the 

 sense of the Greek word and the kind of animal than the Latin 

 translator. 



The other fable of ^sop's, in which an officious wAago?, at a 

 time when the poultry-yard was attacked by an epidemic dis- 

 ease, disguises itself as a physician, and goes to offer its services 

 with the design of devouring them, paints in a very natural 

 manner the perfidious manners and treachery of the cat, and at 

 the same time proves, in opposition to the assertion of the natu- 

 ralists above mentioned, that the animal in question must have 

 been subjected for some time to domestication before its tricks 

 its habits, and its character, could have been observed. 



Now, if I have proved that the cat was known in Egypt, 

 China, India, Judaea, and Chaldea, at the most remote period, 

 it becomes probable that Greece and Asia also possessed that 

 animal ; but they then imposed upon it another name yxxvj, a 

 generic name which they, in like manner, gave to several spe- 

 cies oi Mustela and to a Viverra. It is my object now to unravel 

 the confusion caused by this homonomy, to distinguish in the 

 descriptions of the ancients the different species of y»x^ or Mus- 

 telae, to recognize the cat under all these names by the charac- 

 teristic traits which are peculiar to it ; and I trust, if some at- 

 tention be lent to me, I shall succeed in solving the riddle. 



When agriculture and civilization advanced, and men be- 

 came sensible of the inconveniencies resulting from the too 

 great multiplication of a species, they would naturally devise 

 means of destroying it, and guarding themselves against its 

 attacks. 



Rats, mice, and other glires of a like nature, appear from 

 the earliest times of history, and even of fable. Poisons, traps, 

 and machines adapted for destroying these noxious animals were 

 not yet invented, and there were then more forests, copses, and re- 

 treats for them than now. Man would naturally employ ani- 

 • iv. 1. 1. 



