VARIETIES 37 



The cat was a common animal, known to the 

 Greeks at the period when Athens represented 

 the civilization of the world j and later, in the 

 Greco-Italian civilization of Herculaneum and 

 Pompeii, in the south of Italy, and in the pe- 

 riod of Roman supremacy, it was a well-known 

 animal and the pet of courts and ladies' bou- 

 doirs. The first account of its domestication 

 in Great Britain comes at a comparatively late 

 period. 



A canon enacted in the year 1127 forbade 

 any abbess or nun to use more costly fur than 

 that of lambs or cats ; and the cat was an ob- 

 ject of the chase in royal forests, as is shown 

 by a license to hunt it of the date 1239, and 

 by a similar charter given by Richard II. to the 

 abbot of Peterborough. 



In resume, from the foregoing it is evident 

 that the domestication of the cat, or at least 

 its subjugation, which renders it a companion 

 of mankind, took place at a very early period, 

 probably synchronous with the first civilization 

 of man himself. As pussy is an animal which, 

 while savage, wild, and unmanageable in early 

 age and its natural state, is yet small enough 



