CATS OF THE PAST. 



" was on account of the variety of her fur, 

 and because she is astir at night ; and further- 

 more, because she bears firstly one kitten at 

 a birth, and at the second two, at the third 

 three, and then four, and then five, until the 

 seventh time, so that she bears in all twenty- 

 eight, as many as the moon has days. Now 

 this, perchance, is fabulous, but 'tis most true 

 that her eyes do enlarge and grow full at the 

 full moon, and that on the contrary they 

 contract and diminish at the decline of the 

 same." 



Among other fables of classic naturalists 

 and historians may be mentioned the follow- 

 ing by Herodotus : " If a fire occurs, cats are 

 subject to supernatural impulses ; and while 

 the Egyptians ranged in lines with gaps between 

 them, are much more solicitous to save their 

 cats than to extinguish the fire, these animals 

 slip through the empty spaces, spring over the 

 men's shoulders, and fling themselves into the 

 flames. When such accidents happen, pro- 

 found ,grief falls upon the Egyptians." 



Whether these frenzied cats did or did 

 not commit suicide is open to doubt, but that 

 they would plunge fearlessly into water is an 

 acknowledged fact. This is attested by paint- 

 ings representing sporting scenes in the valley 

 of the Nile. Men and women used to go out 

 on fowling excursions in a boat to the jungles 

 and thickets of the marsh land, or to lakes in 

 their own grounds, which abounded with wild 

 fowl, and there among the tall reeds knock 

 down the bird with a stick. Into these happy 

 hunting grounds they took a cat who would 

 jump into the water and retrieve the game 

 as it fell. There is a painting taken and 



AN EGYPTIAN TOY CAT. 

 (At the British Museum.) 



brought from a tomb in Thebes, which is now 

 in the British Museum, and Wilkinson, in his 

 " Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians," 

 writes as follows : "A favourite cat sometimes 

 accompanied the Egyptian sportsmen on these 

 occasions, and the artist intends to show us, 

 by the exactness with which he represents 

 the animal seizing the game, that cats were 

 trained to hunt and carry the water-fowl." 



One of the earliest representations of the 

 cat is "to-be-found in the Necropolis of Thebes, 

 which contains the tomb of Hana, who prob- 

 ably belonged to the Eleventh Dynasty. There 

 is a statue of the king standing erect, with his 

 cat Bouhaki between his feet. The large 

 basalt statues, of which there are so many in 

 the British Museum, both seated and stand- 

 ing, are examples of great interest. They 

 have mostly the disc of lunar divinity above 

 their heads and the royal asp above the 

 forehead. 



M. Champfleury, in his delightful book, 

 " Les Chats," gives a good deal of information 

 regarding the cats of ancient Egypt, and men- 

 tions the existence of funerary statues of 

 women which bear the inscription Techau, 

 the cat, in token of the patronage of the god- 

 dess Bast. Frenchmen occasionally call their 

 wives ma chattc without attaching any hier- 

 atic association to that term of endearment. 



According to ancient documents in the 

 Louvre, we are enabled to surmise the name 

 by which the cat was known in Egypt. It was 

 Mau-Mai', Maau, or Maon. A tablet in the 

 Berlin Museum, bearing the representation 

 of a cat, dates from 1600 B.C., and another, 

 two hundred years older, has an inscription 

 in which the word " Mau " appears. 



Amongst old Egyptian images in bronze 

 and earthenware, we may often find the cat 

 crouching with the symbolic eye, emblem of 

 the sun, engraved upon its collar. In the 

 British Museum there is a curious example of 

 a toy in the shape of a wooden cat with inlaid 

 glass eyes and a movable lower jaw well lined 

 with teeth. 



There is a tradition that Cambyses devised 

 a scheme for the capture of the town of Peluse, 



