212 CARNIVORA. 



The Goddess Pacht or Bast who is represented with a cat's head, 

 had her shrine at Bubastis in the Delta, and there most of the cats were 

 taken to be buried. Pacht seems to have been the goddess who presided 

 over birth and infancy, and to have represented some of the attributes 

 of the Phccnician Astartc. 



In German mythology the cat appears as the beast of the goddess 

 Freia who drove about drawn by a team of cats ; hence when the religion 

 of our fathers gave way to Christianity the cat became the associate of 

 witches in popular superstition, and lingering reminiscences of its sacred 

 character have given rise to the belief still held by most of us, that " who 

 ever drt)wns a cat will be unlucky for seven years." The cruel practice 

 of throwing from the church tower cats with bladders tied to their feet 

 is said to have arisen at Vpres, and was regarded as a sign that the 

 people had thrown off heathenism ; it was a mockery of Freia's team. 

 The proverb of "letting the cat out of the bag" has a curious history. 

 According to tradition the Ring of the Nibelimgs had the power ol 

 always replenishing a lioarded treasure : ot course such a ring was a 

 most desirable acquisition, and if the ring could not be procured, was 

 there any substitute ? The substitute was called the " Broodpenny," and 

 was a coin which could be procured in this fashion : on the longest night 

 of the year take a black cat and put it in a bag, and tie the bag tight with 

 ninety and nine knots ; then go to the church and walk three times round 

 the church, taking care every time you pass the door to put your mouth 

 to the key-hole, and call for the sexton. On the third summons the 

 sexton — of course old Nick — appears ; you ask him if he would like to 

 buy a hare ; he offers and vou accciU a dollar for vour bag and its con- 

 tents. \'ou must then do j'our very best running, while the purchaser 

 is untying the ninety and nine knots, for when they are all untied, the 

 cat is out of the bag, and there is the very devil to pay. 



The cat was undoubtedly first tamed by the Egyptians ; the Greeks 

 and Romans make very slight mention of them. In the tenth century 

 the laws of the Welsh prince Howell Da, fixed the prices of cats of all 

 ages, and it was decreed that whosoever killed the king's cat should pay 

 as a fine such an amount of wheat as was necessary to cover the cat 

 cntirelv when held by tiie tail with its nose on the ground. 



The EcvrriAX Cat, Ftlis utauiculatus, was found by Ruppell on the 

 west side of the Nile, in a district where rocks and bush alternate ; it has 

 since been seen in Abyssinia, the Soudan and the interior of Africa. Its 



