CHAPTER XXXI 



ANECDOTES ABOUT CATS continued 



SOME years since I saw a paragraph in that popular 

 fanciers' paper, Fur and Feather^ giving short particulars of 

 a cat which had taken to quite a novel recreation, being 

 that of 'mountaineering, and its doings were duly 

 chronicled in some of the local Swiss papers : 



" The cat came upon the scene suddenly and no one 

 knew from whence. It had already reached months of 

 discretion when it took up its abode and profession in 

 the mountain hospice, and was then to be seen most 

 days at the foot of the Dent du Midi, not far from 

 Salfaufe. 



" Here this remarkable tabby came to meet the moun- 

 taineers on their start and followed them c like a dog ' ; 

 only dogs do not, as a rule, show any fancy for the high 

 Alps. 



"It accompanied them to the very summit, and shared 

 the climbers' frugal fare. Indeed, it is supposed to be for 

 the sake of the broken fragments that this Alpine cat 

 makes its daily ascent. 



266 



