84 THE WILD CAT OF EUHOPE. 



In another, the Letto funebre, is a tomb on the vault 

 of which is painted a cat with a pigeon over its head. 

 These tombs date from 350 to 200 B.C. 



A correspondent from Rome writes : — " I should 

 think there was no doubt whatever that the Etruscans 

 received the Domestic Cat from the Egyptians by 

 means of the Phoenician traders, as in the very earliest 

 and rudest Etruscan tombs in the neighbourhood 

 of Civeta Castellani (the contents of which are 

 now in the museum of Papa Guilio, near Kome) 

 there are unmistakable traces of the Phoenician 

 trade." 



The same correspondent writes : — " There is a very 

 curious and unique has-relief in the Capitoline 

 Museum of a lady piping to her cat, which is standing 

 on its hind legs, while just beyond its reach two dead 

 ducks or geese hang on a branch of a tree." 



In the Museum of Naples, a correspondent writes, 

 are two mosaics from Pompeii : " one a kitten killing 

 a chicken or pigeon, very like our Domestic Cat of 

 the 19th century, it is nicely marked grey ; another 

 is quite a differently drawn creature, much more 

 angular, of a yellow colour with brownish markings : 

 the difference in form may be that the kitten was 

 drawn by a more able artist." 



The Rev. W. Houghton, who has paid much atten- 

 tion to the natural history of the ancients, is of opinion 

 that the Domestic Egyptian Cat was introduced into 

 Italy through the Tyrrhine trade with Egypt, and that 

 the early inhabitants of Etruria were acquainted with 

 the " mouse-killing cat." 



The earliest written record of the introduction of 

 the Domestic Cat into Britain is somewhere about 

 936 A.D., when Hoel Da, Prince of South Wales, 



