THE WILD CAT OF BRITAIN. 169 



witty retort put Geoffrey to the blush, and threw the whole 

 company into a violent fit of laughter. " 



Of a very different character was the usage of the cat at 

 clerical festivals. In Mill's " History of the Crusades," 

 one reads with some degree of horror that *' In the Middle 

 Ages the cat was a very important personage in religious 

 festivals. At Aix, in Provence, on the festival of the Corpus 

 Christi, the finest he-cat of the country, wrapped like a child 

 in swaddling clothes, was exhibited in a magnificent shrine 

 to public admiration. Every knee was bent, every hand 

 strewed flowers or poured incense ; and pussy was treated in 

 all respects as the god of the day. On the festival, however, 

 of St. John (June 24), the poor cat's fate was reversed. A 

 number of cats were put in a wicker basket, and thrown alive 

 into the midst of a large fire, kindled in the public square 

 by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were 

 sung, and processions were made by the priests and people 

 in honour of the sacrifice." 



While the foregoing was about being printed, Mr. 

 Edward Hamilton, M.D., writing to The Fields May nth, 

 1889, gives information of a wild cat being shot in Inver- 

 ness-shire. I therefore insert the paragraph, as every record 

 of so scarce an animal is of importance and value, especially 

 when it is descriptive. He states: "A fine specimen of 

 the wild cat {Felis sylvestris) was sent to me on May 3rd, 

 trapped in Inverness-shire on the Ben Nevis range. It was 

 too much decomposed to exhibit. Its dimensions were : 

 from nose to base of tail, i foot 11 inches; length of tail, 

 I foot ; height at shoulder, i foot 2 inches ; the length of 

 small intestine, i foot 8}^ inches; and the large intestine, 

 I foot I inch." It will be seen by these measurements that 

 the animal was not so large as some that have been taken, 

 though excelling in size many of the domestic varieties. 



