CAT.J 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



55 



IT is an unclean and a poisonous animal. It is said to 

 fight against toads, and though it be beaten off by their 

 venomed darts, yet it is not killed. 



Hortus Sanitatis, bk. ii. ch. ci. 



IF dogs chance to find a Cat's skin, they will rub and 

 roll themselves upon it. And they will do so likewise 

 where it is buried ; they delight so much of the thing 

 dead, which they hated alive. 



Luptoa, "A Thousand Notable Things," bk. i. 77. 



EC ATS are of divers colours, but for the most part 

 zzled, like to congealed ice, which cometh from the 

 condition of her meat. If the long hairs growing about 

 her mouth be cut away, she loseth her courage. There 

 was in a certain monastery a Cat nourished by the monks, 

 and suddenly the most part of the monks which used to 

 play with the Cat fell sick ; whereof the Physicians could 

 find no cause, but some secret poison, and all of them 

 were assured that they never tasted any. At the last a 

 >or labouring man came unto them, affirming that he 



po, 



