256 RABBITS, CATS, AND CAVIES 



require much time, patience and flattery, if success is to 

 be obtained." 



" A correspondent of a once popular weekly journal, 

 under the initials R. D., and who had evidently never 

 heard of Manx cats, writes as follows : 



" In the parish of Peniswick, Hamlet of Shepscombe, 

 there was some time since, and most probably there is now, 

 a singular breed of cats. 



" I had an opportunity of seeing one of them in the 

 house of Mr Neville, the clergyman. These cats have no 

 tails whatever, being like some shepherd's dogs, guileless of 

 the shadow of a tail. But what is still more extraordinary, 

 they neither walk nor trot across the room, all their move- 

 ments are precisely those of the rabbit. Thus, instead of 

 walking they hop, whether at a slow or fast pace. With 

 the exception of a deficiency in the caudal appendage, the 

 animal is in all other respects a perfect cat. I could not, 

 though I made diligent inquiry, learn anything satisfactory 

 as to the origin of these animals, which have so much the 

 resemblance of a cross between bunny and grimalkin." 



The above paragraph elicited a reply in a subsequent 

 number of the periodical from a correspondent, giving the 

 initials M. R., and ran as follows : 



" I have much pleasure in answering an inquiry relative 

 to a race of cats without tails, one of which is stated 

 to have belonged to a clergyman at Shepscombe, 

 Glo. : 



" Having lived many years in that locality, and 

 possessed one of the tailless cats, I can give you every 

 particular on the subject. 



