506 DOMESTIC CATS. 



Karrat ; and I presume that the use of this expression shows with 

 some degree of probability that tame cats were in use by this time 

 in Constantinople. The date of Palladius is somewhat uncertain, 

 though supposed with a good deal of probability to have been about 

 the same as that of Caesarius, but as his local habitation appears to 

 have been Italy, his words, iv. 9. 4, ' Contra talpas prodest catos 

 frequenter habere in mediis conductis, mustelas habent plerique man- 

 suetas,' are of importance. They show that the two kinds of cat 

 were both in use as domesticated animals side by side and at the 

 same time, in Italy, nine hundred years before the first of the 

 Crusaders reached Constantinople, and in the days of Gratian and 

 Theodosius, not in those of Godfrey and Tancred. 



From the same authority, Ducange, I find that Evagrius (fl. ^^6) 

 many years later, indeed almost a couple of centuries after the date 

 ordinarily assigned to Palladius, still recognises atkovpos as the 

 more correct denomination for the Felis domeslicus, saying, as 

 though the word K^TTa were a somewhat trivial and over-familiar 

 designation, atKovpov i]v naTTav rj avvOda Aeyei, lib. vi. 24. The word 

 ' bird ' stood once, I believe, in much the same relation to the word 

 ' fowl : ' and the householders of this country show often a greater 

 precision and correctness, more prisca fides in short in this matter 

 of the use of these two words, than the upper Ten Thousand do. 



I have had a reference given me to a work of the period of 

 Eustathius, i.e. about iioo a.d., viz. the FttAecojoiuojutaxta of Theo- 

 dorus Prodromus, in which the word yakr\ may be found ^ and 

 proved to be used for the cat as we understand the word. I have 

 not however been able to discover or borrow any reference to the 

 employment of the wor 1 yaKr\ in the sense of Felis or in any other 



^ The following are a few lines from this work, taken from an edition printed at 

 Basle, 1518, by Frobenius, without numbering to the lines. They are, I think, 

 conclusive : — 



A. Tis kariv avrt] ; ixr) <p9ovT}(irjs rov Keyuv. 



B. "^v yaXerjv uvo/xa^ev dvOpuinojv yivos, 

 avTT] yap alel xVP^f-^^ vepiPXinei, 

 KOI fivs kpevva . . . 



"^fxas dvxi^fi XvyKiKov ^Xkirovaa ti. 



TToXk^v Karayyovs tuiv iraXai TT^cpvKOTOJV 

 rriv daOeveiav koI KaKicTTTjv dovkeiav 

 dv6^ wvirep uaw (pojXeuiv fiVxaiTCLTcov 

 fjievovTfs ovK aroKixov etxov KapSiav. 

 Kai drj Kareix^ tois ovv^iv dypicps, 

 Kal crvv rdx^i fiifipctiKC rov vtaviav. 



