30 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



accused. One old keeper met all inquiries about the 

 departure of cats with this sound piece of wisdom : 

 " If ye makes 'em bide at 'ome, there won't be no need 

 for wantin' 'em to come back." 



New times give the keeper new excuses. Taxed with 

 a cat's disappearance, he blames the motor-car ; some 



day he will blame the flying- ship ; where a 

 Skeletons railway is at hand he always has a ready 

 Cobwebs excuse. We would be the last to suggest 



that when the mortal remains of a cat are 

 found on a road frequented by motor-cars the pre- 

 sumption is always justified that the cat was slain by a 

 keeper who endeavoured to put the blame on an inno- 

 cent driver. We are confident that many cats in 

 game-preserved places live to die from old age. Ten 

 years is a ripe age for a cat, but some die from accidents 

 more natural than execution or murder. Like the 

 birds, when they know their hours to be numbered, 

 cats creep away to some quiet hiding-place to await 

 death perhaps beneath the floor of an old barn, or 

 among the rafters of a familiar roof, where they 

 hunted rats and mice in youthful days. 



Now and again, in old buildings, death-chambers 

 are discovered where the skeletons of cats have 

 been hidden among cobwebs and dust, perhaps for 

 hundreds of years. 



