72 BRITISH QUADRUPEDS. 



produced a pair of young ones at the end of that time, 

 she was left to herself, and soon disappeared with both 

 her kittens. The lady in Glasgow wrote to her friend 

 in Edinburgh deploring her loss ; but about a fortnight 

 after her disappearance, her well-known mew was heard 

 at the street door of her old mistress, for she was there 

 with both her kittens ; they in their best state, but she 

 was very thin. How much must she have done and suf- 

 fered to accomplish her object ! It is obvious she could 

 carry only one kitten at a time, and the distance from 

 Glasgow to Edinburgh is forty miles ; so that, if she 

 brought one kitten part of the way, and then went back 

 for the other, and thus conveyed them by turns, she must 

 have travelled at least one hundred and twenty miles. 

 Her sagacity must have also suggested, with many 

 other precautions, the necessity of journeying in the 

 night, for the safety of her young. 



Cats have become the defenders of their master's pro- 

 perty. A man who was sentenced to be transported for 

 robbery, stated to a gentleman, that he and two others 

 broke into a house near Hampton Court ; in the act of 

 plundering it, a large black cat flew at one of the rob- 

 bers, and fixed her claws on each side of his face ; he 

 added, that he never saw any man so much frightened. 



Another of these creatures is said to have watched by 



