ORIGIN OF " PUSS " 



Felis catus. It may seem to some so elaborate a diver- 

 gence from obviousness to seek a foreign origin for a 

 beast so exactly like a wild creature actually inhabiting 

 these islands. The proof is largely antiquarian in its 

 nature. If wild cats were really domesticated, how 

 is it that we hear so little about them in the past ; and 

 how is it that when legend or history does tell us any- 

 thing, it is to emphasize their scarcity and value. 

 Witness, for example, the story of Dick Whittington. 

 His cat brought him a fortune. The very name " puss " 

 is an indication of exotic origin. Some think it is an 

 abbreviation of " Persian," and that in consequence 

 we are to look upon Persia as the ancestral home of 

 our fireside friends. Not so thinks the author of that 

 most readable work, Gleanings from the Natural History 

 of the Ancients. For Mr. Watson the name is a cor- 

 ruption of Bubastis or Pasht, and suggests an Egyptian 

 origin, which fits in well with the habitat of a wild cat 

 Felis maniculata, and with the probable course of 

 civilization and cats from Egypt along the Mediter- 

 ranean to these shores of ours. Perhaps the " poor 

 cat " who " amat pisces, sed not vult tingere plantas," 

 has retained its dread of water from a previous dwell- 

 ing in a hot, sandy, and waterless desert. That there 

 is no inherent dislike of water in the cat tribe is clearly 

 shown by the fact that the tiger will swim across the 

 river Amur in its northward wanderings, and to the 

 island of Hong Kong in search of pigs, or perhaps 

 coolies, while the East harbours also a carnivore which 

 is actually known from its habitats as the " Fishing 

 cat." That the domestic cat has not been long 

 " civilized," relatively speaking, is shown by its reten- 

 tion of many of the habits of a wild animal. An able 

 and ingenious writer, Dr. Louis Robinson, has lately 

 discerned in the ways of tabbies many such traits. 

 The fondness for sleeping coiled up and on an exposed 



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