AITECTION IN A CAT. 223 



LETTEB, LXXVI. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, May 9, 1776. 



" • ■ Admorunt ubera tigres.'' 



Deae Sie, — We have remarked in a former letter how much 

 incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may be attached to 

 each other from, a spirit of sociality ; in this, it may not be 

 amiss to recount a different motive, which has been known 

 to create as strange a fondness. 



My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him, 

 which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the 

 same time, his cat kittened, and the young were dispatched 

 and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be 

 gone the way of most foundlings, to be killed by some dog 

 or cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the master was 

 sitting in his garden, in the dusk of the evening, he observed 

 his cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling with 

 little short inward notes of complacency, such as they use 

 towards their kittens, and something gamboling after, which 

 proved to be the leveret that the cat had supported with her 

 milk, and continued to support with great aifection.* 



* About two years since, at a cottar's house in Annandale, Dumfries-shire, 

 a litter of pigs by some accident lost their mother; at the same time a pointer 

 bitch happened to pup, and the puppies suflFeriug the lot common to most such, 

 their place was supplied by the pigs, which were well and affectionately nursed 

 by their foster-parent. — W, J., 1829. 



It has been most beautifully and providentially ordered that the process of 

 suckling their young is as pleasurable to the parent animal, as it is essential to 

 the support of the infant progeny. The roammaj of animals become painful 

 when over distended with milk. Drawing off that fluid removes positive 

 uner iness, and affords positive pleasure. The nipple, previously soft and 

 ilacc. ., becomes, on the young beginning to sucH, enlarged, firm, and erect, and 

 the flowing of the milk is accompanied by an exquisitely pleasing sensation. 

 The nipple is highly organised, and becomes enlarged on application of slight 

 friction, and by a kind of spasmodic action will sometimes throw out the 



