CHAPTER XXXV 
CATS AND DOGS 
Any consideration of domestic animals would be quite 
incomplete if it did not include the cat and the dog, for no 
other animals are more generally associated with our home 
life. Though their economic value is not so evident as that 
of horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs, their relation to the family 
is much more intimate. Most people seem to have a natural 
craving for the companionship of some dumb animal, and so 
the dog and the cat have been adopted as pets. At the same 
time they do important police duty upon their master’s 
premises, the cat giving special attention to such pests as rats 
and mice, and the dog keeping a lookout for larger intruders. 
Cats 
Origin. — Cats were domesticated before the dawn of his- 
tory, and we have no knowledge of the wild species from which 
they descended. The earliest records of domestic cats are 
found in Egyptian history, and show that among the ancient 
Egyptians they were worshipped as sacred animals. Among 
the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, cats were scarcely 
known, and they were rare in Europe even in the earlier 
centuries of medieval times. It seems probable, therefore, 
that our cats are descendants of the race kept by the ancient 
Egyptians, and that this in turn was derived from some wild 
species formerly living in Northern Africa or Southern Asia. 
Our cats are related to the lion, tiger, and panther of the Old 
World and to the jaguar, puma, Canada lynx, and wild-cat 
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