148 The Naturalist in Siluria. 



that animals are improved, or made bigger, by being 

 brought under the dominion of man. Its coat, moreover, 

 after the four years of freedom from restraint, was of the 

 sleekest and glossiest, its whole appearance proving it in 

 perfect health, with all the litheness and vigour of its 

 feline kindred the leopards, panthers, and tigers. This 

 fact of a tame cat increasing in size when it turns wild 

 has been often observed, and would seem to strengthen 

 the argument of a descent from our indigenous wild 

 species, now nearly extinct ; the latter, as is well known, 

 being much larger than the former. Whatever the 

 truth of this matter, it is certain that tame cats always 

 evince a tendency to take to the fields, and still more the 

 woods, where these are near at hand, to stay in them for 

 periods longer or shorter, in proportion as they there 

 find suitable provender; and, furthermore, that cats noted 

 for this sort of absenteeism are always those of greatest 

 size and strength. The distance these straying grim- 

 alkins will wander from their own homes is something 

 wonderful. One lately shot in Penyard Wood was 

 identified by its very dissatisfied owner, who lives at 

 a little clutch of houses called Crow Hill, quite three 

 miles from the scene of the slaughter ! Yet this cat was 

 not " after kind," but skulking among the trees in quest 

 of squirrels^ rabbits, or leverets. 



WILD BABBITS WONDERFULLY PROLIFIC. 



Whatever the fact elsewhere, in this neighbourhood 

 the wild rabbit is prolific to an extraordinary degree. 



