THE BOOK OF THE CAT. 



which, if true, is one example among many things and domestic animals belonging to 



of the devotion of the Egyptians to cats. It children were buried with them, 

 was in the fourteenth year of his reign that From some of the oldest Indian fables we 



this king of Persia tried to effect an entry into learn that the cat was domesticated in that 



Egypt, and he is said to have hit upon a clever country at a very early period. Her first 



strategy. Knowing that the garrison of the appearance into China would seem to have 



town was entirely comprised of Egyptians, he been about 400 A.D. There is a curious 



put at the head of his army soldiers each carry- ancient Chinese saying to the effect that 



ing in their arms a cat. The Egyptians, " A lame cat is better than a swift horse 



alarmed lest they might injure the sacred when rats infest a palace." 

 animals when destroying their enemies, con- Amongst the curious freaks in the natural 



sented rather to be vanquished. But for world are mineral lusus. These are stones, 



their scruples they might perhaps have agates, or marbles, which, by the action of 



repulsed the invaders, for the Persian soldiers the soil, air, or water during thousands of 



could not well have done their 

 share of the fighting while clasp- 

 ing in their arms restless and 

 terrified cats ! 



It is strange that the cat 

 was almost neglected by the 

 Greeks and Romans. It is true 

 that Grecian art working on 

 such grand sweeping lines might 

 fail to follow the insignificant 

 yet graceful curves of the cat. 

 Therefore no Greek monument 

 is adorned with a figure of 



A MINERAL I.USUS. 

 (FrotH aft old Engraving) 



years, have assumed various 

 forms, which we may interpret 

 to represent human heads, trees, 

 animals, and so forth. This 

 illustration of a mineral lusus 

 is taken on a reduced scale 

 from a book by Aldrovandus, 

 an Italian naturalist of the 

 seventeenth century. The figure 

 of the cat occurs, he says, in a 

 slab of marble. It was also re- 

 produced by Athanasius Kircher, 



the Jesuit, who copied many of 



the idol of Egypt, and Homer never gives a Aldrovandus's engravings, 



passing mention of the cat. Among the I think the most casual observer would 



Greeks the cat was sacred to the goddess pronounce this illustration to be the repre- 



Diana. Mythologists pretend that Diana sentation of a cat ; and if, as we are led to 



created the cat in order to throw ridicule upon believe, this and other figures are really the 



the lion, an animal supposed to have been result of natural causes, we can only marvel 



called into existence by Apollo with the in- at the wonderful correctness of outline and 



tention of frightening his sister. This he form in which through countless ages the 



followed up by producing a mouse, which substances comprising the specimen have 



Hecate's cat immediately ate up. A cat was arranged themselves. 



often emblazoned on the shields and flags of We have no record that the cat became 

 Roman soldiers. That the cat was known at domesticated in Great Britain and France 

 an early period in Italy we have proof in before the ninth century, when it would 

 the curious mosaic in the Museum at Naples, seem that she was by no means common, and 

 which depicts one pouncing upon a bird, considered of great value ; for in the time of 

 The date of this has been fixed at about one one of the old Princes of Wales, who died in 

 hundred years prior to the Christian era. In 948, the price of a kitten before it could see 

 the Bordeaux Museum there is a tomb of the was fixed at a penny, after it had captured a 

 Gello-Roman period with a representation of mouse, twopence ; and if it gave further 

 a girl holding a cat in her arms and with a proofs of its usefulness it was rated at four- 

 cock at her feet. In those days the play- pence. This same prince, Howel the Good, 



