58 The Carnivora. 
the invariable untrustworthiness of these accounts, I cannot but 
be impressed with the readiness with which they crumble to 
Pieces on examination. No one, of course, will dispute that cats 
have, on what appears to be very strong evidence, made some 
remarkable journeys, and, so far as we know, without any 
assistance. Thus I should deem a journey of even five miles 
remarkable, though it is not at all beyond possibility that the 
cat had made excursions on its own affairs to that distance from 
home in more than one direction, and would be acquainted with 
the way there and back. Still, in a number of something more 
than seventy of these accounts, I find only one alleging the 
distance to be over two miles, which can be accepted as trust- 
worthy, irrespective of any question of distance. 
This was told me by an old sporting companion, who in all 
things within his own knowledge was an accurate observer and 
conscientious narrator; but this was unfortunately a second- 
hand narrative. An acquaintance of his, living near Sunderland, 
had a male cat, which had been condemned to death, after 
fruitless efforts to domesticate it, at a distance of five or six 
miles from home. It had returned more than once, if my 
memory serves me. Finally, one of the servants was charged 
with the task of disposing of it, and he carried it in a bag to 
Sunderland Bridge, whence he threw it from the bag into the 
water—a height of about a hundred feet—and walked leisurely 
home, in the conviction that the affair was at last settled. On 
arriving, he was much astonished to find Tom sitting before the 
fire, licking himself dry, apparently none the worse for his duck- 
ing. The neighbours hearing of this, of course regarded the cat 
as “charmed.” The incident seems to me to prove simply that 
the animal had a fortunate escape, and went straight away 
home over ground which it had probably often explored; 
Sunderland was not the populous place forty years ago that it 
is now. After this fruitless attempt to destroy him, Tom 
received a ticket-of-leave for the rest of his life. 
Whatever credence we may be disposed to give any particular 
story of this kind, there is no escape from the results of the 
