THE RAT AND THE CAT. 123 



no excuses listened to. A man cannot be ex- 

 pected to wish for the extermination of an 

 animal by whose presence on our farms he gets 

 his living. He should have something hand- 

 some a year if we never saw a rat, half this if 

 a few appeared until they disappeared again, 

 and nothing, and we would employ some one 

 else, if they became troublesome. 



The wild cat is, we believe, becoming rather 

 more numerous than it used to be owing to its 

 being allowed to breed undisturbed in our deer- 

 forests. We killed two which came close to the 

 house and carried off our tame ducks. 



But the house cat is nearly as destructive. 

 How any person can pretend to care for birds, 

 and yet harbour and encourage cats is one of 

 those enigmas we cannot understand. What 

 should we think of a superior race of beings 

 who pretended great affection for us, and 

 passed laws for our protection, yet who each of 

 them kept one or two tame tigers, giving them 

 their liberty with the certain knowledge that 



