74 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE. 



puss her usual breakfast, great curiosity was excited on seeing 

 a third added to the number; and the astonishment was still 

 greater when the third was discovered to be a young rat 

 which the cat had taken from its nest in the night-time, and 

 brought home as a companion to the kittens she was then 

 nursing. The young rat was very lively, and was treated by 

 the cat with the same attention and care as if it were one 

 of her own offspring." 



The Cat as a The distances that cats will travel, finding 

 Traveller, their way with unerring instinct many miles across 

 country of which there seems no reason to suppose them to have 

 had previous knowledge is very remarkable. Mrs. Bowdich 

 records the case of a cat who disliking her new home, 

 returned to her old one, in doing which, she had to cross 

 two rivers, one of them about eighty feet broad and two feet 

 and a half deep, running strong; the other wider and more 

 rapid, but less deep. Cats are said to have found their way from 

 Edinburgh to Glasgow, and one to the writer's knowledge 

 returned from Dover to Canterbury after being carried from 

 thence by rail. Captain Brown gives the following remark- 

 able instance. In June, 1 825, a farmer, residing in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Ross, sent a load of grain to Gloucester, a 

 distance of about sixteen miles. The waggoners loaded in 

 the evening, and started early in the morning. On unload- 

 ing at Gloucester, a favourite cat, belonging to the farmer, 

 was found among the sacks, with two kittens of very recent 

 birth. The waggoner very humanely placed puss and her 

 young in a hay-loft, where he expected they would remain 

 in safety, imtil he should be ready to depart for home. On 

 his return to the loft shortly afterwards, neither cat nor kittens 

 were to be found, and he reluctantly left town without them. 

 Next morning the cat entered the kitchen of her master's house 

 with one kitten in her mouth. It was dead; but she placed 

 it before the fire, and without seeking food, o indulging, 

 for a moment, in the genial warmth of Stic her dome hearth. 



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