The Domestic Cat Diving for Fishes. 23 



depends, lies neglected, while we cultivate luxuries to a 

 morbid excess. Every thing is cheapened but human food; 

 every thing becomes annually more attainable, but the neces- 

 saries of the table. If this disproportion between the arts 

 and agriculture continues to advance, we are destined to live 

 in a sort of splendid pauperism : enjoying the luxuries of fine 

 houses and furniture, we shall enjoy every thing to satiety but 

 bread. W, 



THE DOMESTIC CAT DIVING FOR FISHES. 



[From Loudon's Magazine of Natural History.] 



Sir — In reading that delightful little work of Mr. White's, 

 'The Natural History of Shelborne,' the propensity of cats 

 for fish, and their repugnance to wetting their feet, are re- 

 marked by the intelligent author. An anecdote or two of 

 these beautiful but maligned quadrupeds, proving their pis- 

 civorous natures in the one case, and in the other a strong 

 natural antipathy overcome by a still more powerful propen- 

 sity, will perhaps be amusing to some of your readers, who, 

 like myself, have a regard for every thing ' which lives, and 

 moves, and has a being.' In the centre of my father's garden 

 was a fish-pond, stocked with various kinds of fish. Many a 

 time and oft have I witnessed puss (and a very pretty tortoise- 

 shell puss she was, and a great favorite withal) watching at 

 its brink for its finny inmates, and on their appearing at the 

 surface darting on her prey, and in spite of the wetting and 

 ducking she encountered, bringing them in triumph to the 

 pond's edge, and regaling on the delicious fare. This sport, 

 I believe, she continued in the enjoyment of till the day of 

 her death ; and so amused were we with her angling powers, 

 that no obstruction was ever thrown in her way. The pond, 

 moreover, was not, as some may imagine, sloping in its bottom, 

 and picturesque in its appearance, but it was completely a 

 cockney pond in its tout ensemble, octangular in its shape, of 

 precise equality in its depth, with a pavement smooth and 

 regular both in the sides and base; therefore, before this puss 

 could gratify her taste, a plunge was to be taken which was 

 sufficient to make the stoutest cat's heart tremble. 



The other anecdote relates to a cat of more extraordinary 

 acquirements, which belonged to one of my workmen. In a 

 large and deep pond at my premises in the Green Lanes, a 

 stock — not of fish, but of rats — had accumulated, the de- 



