62 The Carnivora. 
Some observers have been more fortunate than myself in 
finding examples of a creditable moral character in cats. Thus, 
a correspondent of Nature, on the 19th of April, 1883, says: 
“TI can add an instance of benevolence on the part of our 
household cat, who was observed to take out some fish bones 
from the house to the garden, and, being followed, was seen 
to have placed them in frént of a miserably thin and evidently 
stranger cat, who was devouring them; not satisfied with that, 
our cat returned, procured a fresh supply, and repeated its 
charitable offer, which was apparently as gratefully accepted. 
This act of benevolence over, our cat returned to its customary 
dining place and ate the remainder of the bones, no doubt with 
additional zest.” Dr. George J. Romanes, one of the most 
cautious and critical of naturalists, gives an essentially simi- 
lar instance, as related to him by Dr. Allen Thomson, of a 
cat in his family, which attracted the cook’s attention, and led 
her out of the house to a famishing stranger cat; and when 
the latter was supplied with food, paraded round and round 
the starveling, expressing satisfaction by loud purring. 
The maternal instinct in cats is usually very strong, and 
occasionally expressed in a singular manner. In my volume 
of “Zoological Notes,” page 73, I have described the adoption 
of a young Koala, or Australian “native bear,” by a cat whose 
kittens had been drowned, with the exception of one. Although 
it did not live long on this unsuitable milk, the feline foster- 
mother paid it most scrupulous attention, and indicated no 
suspicion that the little creature belonged to an alien race. 
A most striking instance of this kind of adoption was given 
recently by a correspondent of Nature. A cat, having had 
three out of her five kittens taken from her, was found the next 
morning to have replaced them by three young rats, which she 
suckled together with her own progeny. A few days after- 
wards she was deprived of the remaining two kittens, and on the 
following day had installed in their place two more young rats, 
which she continued to rear with the others. This interesting 
spectacle of a cat suckling the young of its natural prey— 
