CAT-TAIL 



1232 



CATTERMOLE 



In 1884 she married Leo Chapman and in 1890, 

 four years after Mr. Chapman's death, was 

 married to George W. Catt, a civil engineer. 



Mrs. Catt taught school and advanced to 

 the position of superintendent of schools in 

 Mason City, Iowa, before she decided to devote 

 all of her talents and energy to the equal 

 suffrage cause. In 1890 she became state lec- 

 turer and organizer of the suffrage movement 

 in Iowa, and since that time has lectured in 

 nearly every state in the Union and in Canada 

 and in almost every country of Europe. She 

 has also served as president of the National 

 American Woman Suffrage Association and of 

 the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. 

 To Mrs. Catt is due a large part of the credit 

 for the progress being made in the suffrage 

 movement in America. See WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 



CAT-TAIL, a wild plant of the swamps 

 and marshes, useful and decorative. There 

 are two species found throughout the United 

 States and 'Southern Canada. Sometimes only 

 a few plants are found in one spot; in other 



CAT-TAILS 



places acres of marsh are covered with their 

 waving green leaves and handsome, seal-brown 

 top growths of dense, pollenlike material and 

 oval spikes of flowers. And here, daintily 

 perched at the tip-top point of a flower stalk, 

 we will find the little marsh wren, singing its 

 song, or from the hidden nests in the lower 

 leaves hear the chatter of bittern, rails and 

 grebes. The larger species of cat-tails, or bul- 

 rushes, as they are sometimes called, grow to 

 a height of five or six feet, have long, broad 

 leaves, and the yellow male flowers right above 

 the brown female ones. The smaller cat-tails 

 have narrow leaves, and the male and female 

 flowers are divided by a short space of bare 

 stalk. 

 The roots of cat-tails are rich in starch and 



are eaten by the Cossacks of Russia. In Eng- 

 land, too, they are eaten under the name of 

 Cossack asparagus. The silky down of cat- 

 tails is used in dressing wounds and for up- 

 holstering. The pollen of this family of plants 

 is very inflammable, and in some places in 

 Europe and India is used as tinder. Soaked 

 in kerosene, the cat-tail serves the small boy 

 as a torch on a festive occasion. 



CATTEGAT, kat'tegat, or KATTEGAT, 

 meaning cot's throat in the language of Scandi- 

 navia, is the name of a strait forming one of 

 the connecting links between the Baltic and 

 the North seas. It is situated between Sweden 



LOCATION MAP 



and Denmark, and is 150 miles long and ninety 

 miles wide. Navigation is attended with dan- 

 ger, on account of its numerous shoals and 

 frequent storms. The fisheries are important, 

 herring especially, that abundant product of 

 the North Sea being caught in great numbers. 

 CATTERMOLE, GEORGE (1800-1868), an Eng- 

 lish water-color painter and illustrator whose 

 work is associated with that of some of the 

 most famous novelists of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. Scott's Waverly Novels were illustrated 

 by him, as were a number of the works of 

 Dickens. With the latter writer, especially, he 

 was on very intimate terms, and reference to 

 him in the Letters of Dickens is frequent. His 

 chief fame, however, was due not to his illus- 

 trative work but to his water colors, which won 

 for him honors in various exhibits. His knowl- 

 edge of color and his feeling for the romantic 

 and picturesque made him especially successful 

 in painting scenes of chivalry. 



