THE CAT AS A FOSTER-MOTHER. 67 



by the grey Rat. This Cat would form no friendship with us, but made almost demoniacal demon- 

 strations of her combined hatred and fear. Her swearing and her spitting were accomplishments 

 learned by her kittens as soon as they could see, and no care of ours could tame them. 



One of the most remarkable things about the Cat is its habit of always burying its excrement, 

 whether solid or liquid. A Cat living in the house is easily trained to leave the premises for 

 this purpose, and will always be found to cover her droppings with earth ; but even young, untrained 

 Cats of dirty habits, who cannot be kept from occasionally defiling the house, will invariably try to 

 hide their sin by scraping up cinders, &c., over it, or will, at any rate, make vigorous scratches at the 

 carpet, in their endeavours to get up some of it for the same purpose. How a habit of this sort can 

 have originated in an animal living in the woods, as do all the Cats when in a wild state, is a 

 puzzle. 



Like most of the Camivora, the Cat is a tender and affectionate mother ; the care with which 

 she trains her young ones, her anxiety for their comfort, her industry in washing them, are too 

 well known to require remark. So fond is she of her offspring that she will entirely alter her 

 usual habits to regain lost ones. Mr. Hugh Miller, F.G.S., tells us of a Cat belonging to a clergyman 

 in Northumberland, whose kittens were taken from her and given to a miller living at a distance 

 of fully two miles, quite beyond the usual walk of a home-loving puss. The mother, however, 

 although she had never been to the place before, and could by no possibility have known where 

 her kittens were taken, made two successive journeys to the mill, each time bringing back in 

 triumph to the rectory one of her dear ones. 



So strong is the maternal instinct in the Cat that she will, if deprived of her own offspring, bestow 

 her affections on animals of a totally different species, on creatures even, which, under ordinary 

 circumstances, she would look upon as her natural and lawful prey. The following is a remarkable 

 instance of this overpowering mother-love : 



" My friend had a little helpless Leveret brought to him, which the servants fed with milk in a 

 spoon, and about the same time his Cat had kittens, which were despatched and buried. The 

 Hare was soon lost, and was supposed to be gone the way of most foundlings, to be killed by some 

 Dog or Cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the master was sitting in his garden in the dusk 

 of evening, he observed his Cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling, with little, short, 

 inward notes of complacency, such as they use towards their kittens, and something gambolling after, 

 which proved to be the Leveret that the Cat had supported with her milk, and continued to support 

 with great affection."* 



Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a carnivorous and predaceous one ! Why so cruel 

 and sanguinary a beast as a Cat, of the ferocious genus Fells, the Murium Leo (Lion of the Mice), as 

 Linnaeus calls it, should be affected with any tenderness towards an animal which is its natural 

 prey, is not so easy to determine. This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance which 

 grave historians, as well as the poets, assert of exposed children being sometimes nurtured by wild 

 beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not one whit more marvellous that Romulus 

 and Remus, in their infant state, should be nursed by a she- Wolf, than that a poor little suckling 

 Leveret should be fostered and cherished by a Cat. 



White, in his " Observations," has another similar anecdote. " A boy has taken three little 

 young Squirrels in their nest, or eyry, as it is called in these parts. These small creatures he put 

 under the care of a Cat who had lately lost her kittens, and finds that she nurses and suckles them 

 with the same assiduity and affection as if they were her own offspring. This circumstance corro- 

 borates my suspicion that the mention of exposed and deserted children being nurtured by female 

 beasts of prey who had lost their young, may not be so improbable an incident as many have supposed ; 

 and, therefore, may be a justification of those authors who have gravely mentioned what some have 

 deemed to be a wild and improbable story. So many people went to see the little Squirrels suckled by 

 a Cat, that the foster-mother became jealous of her charge, and in pain for their safety, and 

 therefore hid them over the ceiling, where one died. This circumstance showed her affection for 

 these foundlings, and that she supposed the Squirrels to be her own young." 



* White's " Selborne." 



