NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 87 



is in cue of my woods. The place is a regular honeycomb of 

 burrows, and the man carefully netted the holes before putting 

 in his ferrets. Imagine his surprise at seeing one of his nets 

 carried away and go rolling down the steep incline to the bottom 

 of the bank, and to find his captive to be a cat ! " 



Mr. Reed of Wick also writes : " In one of the islands of 

 Orkney, where rabbits are very numerous, the inhabitants crop 

 short the ears of their cats to prevent them going into rabbit 

 holes. The ears being cut very close allows the sand to get 

 into them, which so annoys poor puss that she never attempts a 

 second time to poach in rabbit-warrens, which are abundant in 

 the sandy parts of the island." 



CATS SUCKLING HARES. Many cases have been recorded in 

 Land and Water of cats suckling rabbits, young squirrels, &c. 

 1 agree with White, that the cat suckles these foster-children 

 not out of affection for them, but simply to get rid of her milk. 

 It is not at all impossible that Romulus and Remus were suckled 

 by a wolf. 



House cats are great nuisances at the Zoological Gardens. 

 They prowl about the parks at night and easily get over or 

 through the fences into the Gardens, frightening and di&turbing 

 the valuable pheasants and other birds by walking on the top 

 of the cages. Mr. Hartlett does his best to catch these cats. 

 They are skinned and given to the eagles to eat. The skinned 

 cats are amazingly like rabbits ; when the head and paws are 

 cut off it is difficult to tell a cat from a rabbit. On Saturdays 

 the keepers bring the tails of the cats they have caught to the 

 office and are paid sixpence per tail. 



Most of the cats captured in the Gardens are full grown 

 males, that appear to live in sheds and out-houses. I have reason 

 to believe the greater part of these poor cats are the result of 

 people allowing their female cats to rear more kittens than they 

 afterwards like to keep, and which, when they grow up, become 

 troublesome, and are then turned adrift in the hope they may 

 find a home. Failing this they turn wild, and become a perfect 

 nuisance by killing and frightening all the birds and small 

 animals they can find. 



THE OTTKH, p. 104 I cordially sympathise with the delight of 

 White on examining his twenty-one-pound otter. I can, how- 

 ever, beat this animal in weight and size. In January, 1871, my 

 friend, Dr. Norman, of Yarmouth, sent me a magnificent otter, 

 packed in a baby's cradle. He wrote : " I believe this otter to be 

 the largest ever taken in East Anglia, and if well fed his weight 



