PHI AND THETA 45 



and not to us. The cat never longs to talk to us. 

 So little altered is the cat by long domestication that 

 she can manage perfectly well by herself, procuring 

 her own food and bringing up her young in the 

 woods. I have examined a dead cat which had 

 lurked in a copse for about a year, without ever 

 approaching a dwelling. At last it took to felony, 

 stole chickens, and had to be shot It was sleek and 

 well-nourished, more muscular than common. 



The history of our breed of domestic cats is 

 obscure. Naturalists are agreed that it is not identi- 

 cal with the wild cat of Northern Europe. Cuvier 

 could discover no anatomical difference between 

 mummied Egyptian cats and our tame cats, but in 

 this family the specific distinctions are sometimes 

 very slight. Cats have been domesticated in India 

 from remote times. The first mention of the cat in 

 English literature that I have been able to discover is 

 in Piers Ploughman : 



" There was no ratton of the rout, for all the reame of France, 

 That durste bind the bell about the catte's neck." x 



It has been said that the cat, like sugar and many 

 other useful articles, was first brought to Western 

 Europe in the ships of returning Crusaders. There 

 are, however, indications that some domestic cat, 

 whether of eastern or native origin, was familiar in 

 these islands before the Crusades. The code of 

 Howell dda, published with a translation by the 



1 The Gesta Romanorum, which Oesterley supposes to have 

 been written in England towards the end of the thirteenth 

 century, and therefore about a hundred years before Langland, 

 mentions the same fable. 



- 



