cat. ] NATURAL HISTORY. 55 
Ir is an unclean and a poisonous animal. It is said to 
fight against toads, and though it be beaten off by their 
venomed darts, yet it is not killed. 
Hortus Sanitatis, bk. ii. ch. ‘ci. 
Ir dogs chance to find a Cat’s skin, they will rub «and 
roll themselves upon it. And they will do so likewise 
where it is buried; they delight so much of the thing 
dead, which they hated alive. 7 
Lupton, “A Thousand Notable: Things,” bk. i. § 77. 
Cats are of divers colours, but for the most part 
grizzled, like to congealed ice, which cometh from the 
condition of her meat. If the long hairs growing about 
her mouth be cut away, she loseth her courage. There 
was in a certain monastery a Cat nourished by the monks, 
and suddenly the most part of the monks which used to 
play with the Cat fell sick; whereof the Physicians could 
find no cause, but some secret poison, and all of them 
were assured that they never tasted any. At the last a 
poor labouring man came unto them, affirming that he 
