38 The Carnivora. 
few yards, turning his eye up to me with an expression in it 
which plainly asked, “Shall I hustle her for a bit of fun?” Now, 
gentle reader, let me, by way of parenthesis, assure you, that I 
never allow my dogs to worry cats—not only because I have a 
due regard for the feelings of the cat and its owner, but also a 
supreme regard for the eyes of my dog. Pussy had assumed the 
form known as that of the “arch enemy,” since there was no 
escape except by passing the dog, and, though the sun was 
shining full into her face, the pupils of her eyes were fully 
expanded and as round as globes. Thus, in certain states of 
mind, the eye of the cat can not only endure the full light of day, 
but seems to derive advantage fromit. The popular superstition 
with respect to a cat’s ability to “see in the dark” is, of course, 
unfounded. The great capacity for expansion in the pupil 
enables the animal to take advantage of a small amount of light 
which would render no service to an ordinary eye. 
After much search in London, a few years ago, for a quiet 
abode, I selected a house with “gardens” running at right 
angles to the street, at about fifty yards distance on either side. 
There was the great advantage of an outlook from the window 
of my workshop at the back of the house, on luxuriant foliage, 
patches of green turf, and flower beds. On one side rose a wall 
covered with ivy, wherein the sparrows in great numbers carried 
on their nest-building operations in summer, and roosted during 
winter. Near by stood a withered acacia tree, in whose branches 
much courtship went on, and which served, as the days shortened, 
for clamorous congregations of the birds preparing to go to bed 
in the ivy. Well content was I with this bit of nature in a 
populous neighbourhood. In leisure moments it was pleasant to 
sit at the window, binocular in hand, and watch the mimic 
“struggle for existence” going on among the sparrows—the 
rivalry of the males, the squabbles for favourite nesting places 
in the ivy, the scuffles for scraps thrown out in the gardens, and 
the hair-breadth escapes from the snares of the juvenile fowler 
and the claws of the domestic cat. 
Not many days had passed over my head in this “location” 
