Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 67 



date, and it conveys the ufeful moral that they 

 who attempt to benefit their fellow-men muft he 

 prepared for difappointment. A few years ago, 

 if newfpaper reports may be believed, a ihip was 

 fent to the colony of Triftan d'Acunha with a 

 fcore of cats on board. Thefe animals were a 

 prefent from the Lords of the Admiralty, to 

 whom it had been reported that the ifland was 

 moufe-ridden. When the veflel arrived the 

 Governor of the colony begged that the cats 

 might be kept on board. It was quite true, he 

 explained, that the ifland was infefted by mice, 

 but it was alfo overrun by cats. And in Triftan 

 d'Acunha, cats, in confequence of fome ftrange 

 climatic influence, always abandoned moufing, a 

 fact which accounted for the abnormal develop- 

 ment of the moufe population. So that a gift of 

 cats to Triftan d'Acunha was even lefs likely to 

 be welcome than a present of ' owls to Athens/ "* 

 The unhappy reader, however, will now turn 

 upon the author with Bertram's words : " I could 

 endure anything before but a cat, and now he's 

 a cat to me!" ("All's Well that Ends Well," 

 iv. 3, 265). 



1 From an admirable article by W. R. S. Ralfton (Nineteenth 

 Century, Jan. 1883) on the folk-lore of cats, called "Pufs in 

 Boots." 



