116 PAIRING OF BIRDS CATS. 



one of the owls was shot as soon as possible ; but the sur- 

 vivor readily found a mate, and the mischief went on. After 

 some time the new pair were both destroyed, and the 

 annoyance ceased. 



Another instance I remember of a sportsman, whose zeal 

 for the increase of his game being greater than his humanity, 

 after pairing time, he always shot the cock-bird of every 

 couple of partridges upon his grounds : supposing that the 

 rivalry of many males interrupted the breed. He used to 

 say, that though he had widowed the same hen several times, 

 yet he found she was still provided with a fresh paramour, 

 that did not take her away from her usual haunt. 



Again : I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who 

 has often told me that, soon after harvest, he has frequently 

 taken small coveys of partridges consisting of cock-birds 

 alone : these he pleasantly used to call old bachelors. 



There is a propensity belonging to common house cats 

 that is very remarkable : I mean their violent fondness for 

 fish, which appears to be their most favourite food ; and yet 

 nature, in this instance, seems to have planted in them an 

 appetite that, unassisted, they know not how to gratify : for 

 of all quadrupeds, cats are the least disposed towards water ; 

 and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, 

 much less to plunge into that element.* 



* In the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, on the authority of Dr. 

 Darwin, cats fish : he says, " Mr. Leonard, a very intelligent friend of mine, 

 saw a cat catch a trout, by darting upon it in a deep clear water, at the mill at 

 Weaford, near Lichfield. The cat belonged to Mr. Stanley, who had often 

 seen her catch fish in the same manner in summer, when the mill-pool was 

 drawn so low that the fish could be seen. I have heard cf other cats taking 

 fish in shallow water, as they stood on the bank. This seems to be a natural 

 method of taking their prey, usually lost by domestication, though they all 

 retain a strong relish for fish." The Rev. W. Bingley mentions another 

 instance of a cat freely taking the water, related by his friend Mr. Bill, of 

 Christchurch. When he lived at Wallington, near Carshalton, in Surrey, 

 he had a cat that was often known to plunge, without hesitation, into the 

 river Wandle, and swim over to an island at a little distance from the bank. 

 To this there could be no other inducement than the fish she might catch 

 on her passage, or the vermin that the island afforded. W. J. 



" These are curious instances," says the editor of the London Literary 

 Gazette, in reviewing a former edition of this volume, " but the following, 

 which may be depended upon as a fact, is still more remarkable. At Caverton 

 Mill, in Roxburghshire, a beautiful spot upon Kale Water, there was a 

 fevourite cat, domesticated in the dwelling-house, which stood at two or three 



