514 MY GARDEN. 



He permitted the pigs to steal his food, and so kind was he to all the 

 creatures that cats, chickens, ducks, and geese were permitted to share 

 with him his food and house, and the man who fed him was obliged 

 to take care that this kind old dog had not his fair share taken 

 rom him. 



In a garden situated as mine is, cats are indispensable. The cats 

 brought up in the garden are semi-wild in some respects, and yet often 

 docile. In this natural state the fur is most beautiful, and in much 

 finer perfection than that of the cats which dwell in our houses. 



.Sometimes my cats take to killing the moorhens ; at others they . 

 delight in killing the trout, when we are compelled to destroy them ; 

 and one cat demolished every one of my gold-fish. When gentlemen 

 are fishing, the cats are sure to be hidden close at hand ; and when 

 the fish is landed, they pounce upon it and stealthily carry it away. 

 One evening — such was the impudence of one of my cats — on landing 

 a fish the cat started out of the hedge and dashed at the trout before 

 it was taken off the line. However, I was as quick as the cat, and 

 swinging the fish round in a circle at the risk of breaking my rod, with 

 the cat following, I managed to get the fish a yard ahead, when I 

 gave the cat a good blow with my rod, and sent her scampering back 

 to the bushes. 



The garden cats seem to have nearly exterminated the water vole 

 or water-rat; but the brown land rats come periodically in armies, 

 and then they are too much for the cats. One poor creature had her 

 ears torn to pieces by rats. After a battle with rats their consti- 

 tution appears to suffer, and they frequently die. I saw a cat spring 

 upon a mouse in a strawberry plant. She took it very carefully into 

 the open ground, where she released it, and when it had run three or 

 four yards again pounced upon it. Sl^e then took it up carefully as 

 though it were a kitten, and again laid it down. The poor little mouse " 

 looked up at the cat most imploringly, when the cat fondled it with her 

 paw, and brought it near to her. The mouse again ran away, and was 

 recaptured as before, when the cat appeared to have treated it too roughly 

 and to have injured it. She put the mouse down and watched it for 



