THE DOMESTIC CAT. 255 



population. Its ingratitude has been held up to public odium, 

 which constantly manifests itself against the poor animal, who 

 can rarely show her face in the streets without calling forth a 

 volley of stones or some such annoyance. A writer in the 

 Edinburgh Journal (No. 186), records the following interesting 

 anecdote, as one proof among many he has observed of the 

 attachment and gratitude of cats : " Mrs. A. had a cat of 

 which she was very fond, and whose dinner was provided with 

 as much regularity as that of any member of the house, by 

 the cook bringing home a liver once a-week when she went to 

 purchase provisions for family use. When the liver was brought 

 home, it was cut into seven pieces, and puss had each day her 

 allotted portion. It so happened that Mrs. A. was taken ill 

 and confined to bed. No sooner did the cat miss her kind 

 friend, than she made her way to Mrs. A.'s chamber, and, 

 jumping on the bed, she caressed her mistress, licking her face 

 and hands, and expressing by every means in her power her 

 sympathy and affection. After a time, the cat became restless ; 

 she leapt from the bed, planted herself close to the door, and 

 waited with evident impatience till it was opened. The moment 

 this was done, she ran down stairs, and, to her mistress's great 

 surprise, she returned immediately with a piece of liver in her 

 mouth, which she laid on the bed, and seemed to solicit her 

 to eat j thinking, perhaps, that she was suffering from hunger. 

 The gratitude of puss did not end here ; for on the next market- 

 day, when the cook brought in the liver, ere she had time to 

 divide it, puss, slyly seizing the opportunity when her back was 

 turned, pounced upon the liver, rushed up stairs with it, and 

 laid it on the counterpane with evident marks of pleasure, and 

 with gestures which seemed to say, ' See what a fine dinner I 

 have brought you -, pray get up and eat it.' " 



The chief food of the cat when she is left to forage for herself, 

 in houses and other buildings, consists of mice.* She also 

 kills great numbers of rats, but she rarely eats them unless they 



* Mr. Edward Blyth informs me that, though the cat will eat the common 

 mouse, she will not touch either the harvest mouse (Mus mexsorius) or any 

 species of the shrew genus (Sorex) , improperly called shrew-mice. 



