INTRODUCTION 



It is not the easy and grateful task to trace the 

 cat, as we may trace the dog, through history and 

 literature. All nations have conspired to praise 

 the animal which loves and serves. Few and cold 

 are the praises given to the animal which seldom 

 loves and never serves, which has only the grace 

 c>f companionship to offer in place of the dog's 

 passionate fidelity. There is no cat to put by the 

 side of the hound, Argos, — Argos, old, blind, 

 shivering on a dung-heap, who recognizes Odysseus 

 in his beggar's garb, and dies of joy at his master's 

 return. There is no such epitaph on a cat as that 

 of Simonides on a hound of Thessaly : 



" Surely even as thou liest in this tomb, I deem the 

 wild beasts yet fear thy white bones, Lycas; and thy 

 valour great Pelion knows, and the lonely peaks of 

 Cithaeron." 



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