THE CAT. 



We have seen many cats very closely resembling the wild cat 

 and one or two which could scarcely be distinguished from it. 

 There is, perhaps, no other animal that so soon loses its culti- 

 vation and returns apparently to a state completely wild. A 

 trifling neglect of proper feeding or attention wiU often cause 

 them to depend on their own resources ; and the tasting of 

 some wild and living food will tempt them to seek it again, 

 and to leave their civilized home. They then prowl about in 

 the same manner as their conquerors, crouching among com, 

 and carefully concealing themselves from all publicity. They 

 breed iu the woods and thickets, and support themselves upon 

 birds or young animals. Few extensive rabbit-warrens want 

 two or three depredators of this kind, where they commit 

 great havoc, particularly among the young, in summer. They 

 sleep and repose in the holes, and are often taken in the snares 

 set for their prey. I once came upon a cat which had thus 

 left her home ; she had recently kittened in the ridge of an un- 

 cut cornfield. Upon approaching she showed every disposition 

 to defend her progeny, and beside her lay dead two half -grown 

 leverets. 



Looking towards the great Bell for an endorsement of these 

 sentiments we are disappointed. " It is not without much re- 

 flection," says he, " that I have come to the conclusion that 

 this opinion of their intermixture is erroneous, and has its 

 foundation in mistaken facts." M. Eiippel is as mercilessly 

 handled as Mr. Jardine. " The Nubian cat," continues Mr. 

 BeU, " to which the high authority of Riippel has assigned 

 the origin of the house cat, is still farther removed from it in 

 essential zoological character than even the British wUd cat, to 

 which it had been previously so generally referred ; and that 

 as in the case of so many of our domesticated animals, we have 

 yet to seek for the true original of this useful, gentle, and 

 elegant animaJ." 



VARIETIES or THE DOMESTIC CAT. 



There are not many varieties of this animal in a state of do. 

 mestication, and they are nearly all enumerated by the mention 

 of the TortoisesheU, the Chinese, the Blue or Chartreuse, the 

 Tabby, the Angola, and the Manx. 



The last mentioned — the cat of Manx — is one of the most 

 singular. Its appearance is not prepossessing ; its limbs are 

 gaunt, its fur close-set, its eyes staring and restless, and it 

 possesses no tail, that is, no tail worthy to be so called ; there 



