44 Chapters on Animals. 



been developed into a feeling more completely trustful by 

 greater delicacy and care. I happened to mention him to 

 an hotel-keeper who was unusually fond of animals, and 

 unusually successful in winning their affections. He told 

 me that his own cats were remarkable for their uncommon 

 tameness, being very much petted and caressed, and con- 

 stantly in the habit of seeing numbers of people who came 

 to the hotel, and he advised me to try a kitten of his 

 breed. This kitten, from hereditary civilisation, behaved 

 with the utmost confidence from the beginning, and, with 

 the exception of occasional absences for his own purposes, 

 has lived with me regularly enough. In winter he gen- 

 erally sleeps upon my dog, who submits in patience ; and 

 I have often found him on horseback in the stable, not 

 from any taste for equestrianism, but simply because a 

 horse-cloth is a perpetual warmer when there is a living 

 horse beneath it. 



All who have written upon cats are unanimous in the 

 opinion that their caressing ways bear reference simply to 

 themselves. My cat loves the dog and horse exactly with 

 the tender sentiment we have for foot-warmers and railway 

 rugs during a journey in the depth of winter, nor have I 

 ever been able to detect any worthier feeling towards his 

 master. Ladies are often fond of cats, and pleasantly 

 encourage the illusion that they are affectionate ; it is said 

 too that very intellectual men have often a liking for the 

 same animal. In both these cases the attachment seems 

 to be due more to certain other qualities of the cat than 

 to any strength of sentiment on his part. Of all animals 

 that we can have in a room with us, the cat is the least 

 disturbing. Dogs bring so much dirt into houses that 

 many ladies have a positive horror of them ; squirrels leap 

 about in a manner highly dangerous to the ornaments of a 



