The Book of Cats. 6^ 



London, mention is made of ''a poor half-naked 

 boy, strumming a violin, while another urchin with 

 a whip makes two half-starved Cats go through 

 numerous feats of agility." 



De Roget says, that in animals that graze and 

 keep their heads for a long time in a dependent 

 position, the danger from an excessive impetus in 

 the blood flowing towards the head is much greater 

 than in other animals ; and we find that an extra- 

 ordinaiy provision is made to obviate this danger. 

 The arteries which supply the brain on their en- 

 trance into the basis of the skull suddenly divide 

 into a great number of minute branches, forming 

 a complicated network of vessels, an arrangement 

 which, on the well known principle of hydraulics, 

 must greatly check the velocity of the blood con- 

 ducted through them. That such is the real pur- 

 pose of this structure, which has been called the 

 rete mirabile, is evident from the branches afterwards 

 uniting into larger trunks when they have entered 

 the brain, through the substance of which they are 

 then distributed exactly as in other animals, where 

 no such previous subdivision takes place. The rete 

 mirabile is much developed in the sheep, but scarcely 

 perceptible in the Cat. 



Being an animal which hunts both by day and 



