DOMESTIC CATS. 05 



latter, with signs of great and uncontrollable excitement. Cats are very cleanly, are fond of warmth, 

 and seek a soft place for their repose. The peculiar soft, vibrating noise called " purring" expresses 

 their satisfaction. 



Montenegro presented to the elder Almagro the first cat which was brought to South America, 

 and was rewarded for it with six hundred pesos. 



The first couple of cats which were carried to Cuyaba, sold for a pound weight of gold. As 

 there was a plague of rats in the settlement, these cats were purchased as a speculation, which 

 proved very profitable. The first kittens were sold for the sum of thirty oitavas cadi. The next 

 generation were worth twenty ; and the price gradually fell as the inhabitants became stocked with 

 these beautiful and useful creatures. 



Camden relates " how Alphonse, a Portuguese, being wrecked on the coast of Guinea, and 

 being presented by the king thereof with his weight in gold for a cat to kill their mice, and an 

 ointment to kill their flies, which he improved in five years to six thousand pounds on the place, and, 

 returning to Portugal, after fifteen years' traffic, became the third man in the kingdom." Sir 

 William Gore Ouseley, in his Travels, speaking of the origin of the name of an island in the 

 Persian Gulf, mentions also, on the authority of a Persian MS., that in the tenth century, one 

 Keis, the son of a poor widow in Siraf, embarked for India, witli his sole property a cat. " There 

 he fortunately arrived at a time when the palace was so infested by mice and rats, that they invaded 

 the king's food, and persons were employed to drive them from the royal banquet. Keis produced 

 his cat, the noxious vermin soon disappeared, and magnificent rewards were bestowed on the 

 adventurer of Siraf, who returned to that city, and afterwards, with his mother and brothers, settled 

 in the island, which, from him, has been denominated Keis, or, according to the Persians, Keish." The 

 accordance of these stories with that of Whittington and his cat will at once occur to the reader. 



" Our ancestors," says Pennant, " seem to have had a high sense of the utility of this animal. 

 That excellent prince, Howel Dda, or Howel the Good, did not think it beneath him, among his laws, 

 <fec., relating to the prices of animals (Leges Wallise), to include that of the cat, and to describe the 

 qualities it ought to have. The price of a kitling before it could see, was to be a penny; till it caught 

 a mouse, twopence. It was required besides, that it should be perfect in its senses of hearing and 

 seeing, have the claws whole, and be a good mouser ; but if it failed in any of these qualities, the 

 seller was to forfeit to the buyer the third part of its value. If any one stole or killed the cat that 

 guarded the prince's granaiy, he was to forfeit a milch ewe, its fleece, and lamb ; or as much wheat as, 

 when poured on the cat suspended by its tail, the head touching the floor, would form a heap high 

 enough to cover the tip of the former." This quotation is not only curious, as being an evidence of the 

 simplicity of ancient manners, but it almost proves to a demonstration that cats are not aborigines 

 of these islands, or known to the earliest inhabitants. The large price set on them, if we consider the 

 high value of specie at that time, and the great care taken of the improvement and breed of an 

 animal that multiplies so fast, are almost certain proofs of their being little known at that period. 



The fondness of house cats for fish is very remarkable, as they are the least disposed of all 

 quadrupeds towards water, and will not, when they can avoid it, wet one of their feet, much less plunge 

 into it. Yet one cat was observed to catch a trout, by darting upon it in a deep clear water, at the 

 mill at Weaford, near Lichfield. The cat belonged to Mr. Stanley, who had often observed her catch 

 fish in the same manner, in summer, when the mill-pool was drawn so low that the fish could be 

 seen. Mr. Bill, when he lived near Carshalton, in Surrey, had a cat that was often known to plunge, 

 without hesitation, into the river Wandle, and swim over to an island, at a little distance from the 

 bank. To this there could be no other inducement than the fish she might catch on her passage, or 

 the vermin that the island afforded. 



Still more remarkable is the following fact. At Caverton Mill, in Roxburghshire, a beau ti ftil 

 spot upon the Kale Water, there was a favourite cat, domesticated in the dwelling-house, which stood 

 at the distance of two or three hundred yards from the mill. When the mill- work ceased, the water 

 was, as visual, stopped at the dam-head ; and the dam below, consequently, ran gradually more shallow, 

 often leaving trout, which had ascended when it was full, to struggle back with difficulty to the parent 

 stream ; and so well acquainted had puss become with this circumstance, and so fond was she of fish, that 

 the moment she heard the noise of the mill-clapper cease, she used to scamper oft' to the dam, and, up to her 



