SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT. 195 



And Gremio tells of the untamableness of the wild cat, 

 which he deems apparently impossible : 



But wilt thou woo this wild cat ? 

 Romeo, in Romeo and Jidiet^ looks with much disfavour, 

 not only on cats but also dogs ;• in fact, the dog was held in 

 as high disdain as the cat : 



And every cat and dog, 



And every little mouse, and every unworthy thing. 



Here is Hamlet's opinion : 



The cat will mew, the dog will have his day. 



Ill Cymheline there is : 



In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs. 



The foregoing is enough to show the great poet's opinion 

 of the cat. 



SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT. 



A VERY remarkable peculiarity of the domestic cat, and 

 possibly one that has had much to do with the ill favour 

 with which it has been regarded, especially in the Middle 

 Ages, is the extraordinary property which its fur possesses of 

 yielding electric sparks when hand-rubbed or by other friction, 

 the black in a larger degree than any other colour, even the 

 rapid motion of a fast retreating cat through rough, tangled 

 underwood having been known to produce a luminous 

 effect. In frosty weather it is the more noticeable, the 

 coldness of the weather apparently giving intensity and 

 brilliancy, which to the ignorant would certainly be attributed 

 to the interference of the spiritual or superhuman. To 

 sensitive natures and nervous temperaments the very contact 

 with the fur of the black cat will often produce a startling 

 thrill or absolutely an electric shock. That carefully ob- 

 servant naturalist, Gilbert White, speaking of the frost of 

 1785, notes : " During those two Siberian days my parlour 

 cat was so electric, that had a person stroked her, and been 



o 2 



