THE CAT TRIBE 71 
The nearest to perfection 
perhaps, and yet at the same 
time extremely soft and finely 
made, is the Brug Cart, rare 
in England as an English cat, 
but common in most other 
countries, and called in 
America the Maltese Cat—for 
fashion’s sake probably, since 
it is too widely distributed 
there to be localised as of 
foreign origin. It is out in 
the mining districts and 
agricultural quarters, right | — i MIE: “i ei OE 
away from the beaten tracks Photo by E. Landor] [Ealing 
of humanity, where the most SHORT-HAIRED TABBY 
wonderful breeds of cats This is perhaps the most famous cat now living. It has won no less than 200 prizes 
develop in America; and 
caravan showmen have told me that at one time it was quite a business for them to carry cats 
into these wildernesses, and sell them to rough, hardy miners, who dealt out death to each 
other without hesitation in a quarrel, but who softened to the appeal of an animal which 
reminded them of homelier times. 
One man told me that upon one occasion he sold eight cats at an isolated mining township 
in Colorado, and some six days’ journey farther on he was caught up by a man on horseback 
from the township, who had ridden hard to overtake the menagerie caravan, with the news that 
one of the cats had climbed a monster pine-tree, and that all the other cats had followed in his 
wake; food and drink had been placed in plenty at the foot of the tree, but that the cats had 
been starving, frightened out of their senses, for three days, and despite all attempts to reach 
them they had only climbed higher and higher out of reach into the uppermost and most 
dangerous branches of the pine. The showman hastened 
with his guide across country to the township, only to 
find that in the interval one bright specimen of a man 
belonging to the village had suggested felling the tree 
and so rescuing the cats from the pangs of absolute 
starvation, should they survive the ordeal. A dynamite 
cartridge had been used to blast the roots of the pine, 
and a rope attached to its trunk had done the rest and 
brought the monster tree to earth, only, however, at the 
expense of all the cats, for not one survived the 
tremendous fall and shaking. A sad and tearful pro- 
cession followed the remains of the cats to their hastily 
dug grave, and thereafter a bull mastiff took the place 
of the cats in the township, an animal more in character 
with the lives of its inhabitants. 
Analogous to this case of the traveling menageries, 
we have the great variety of blues, silvers, and whites 
Michal a Bs z “4 which are characteristic of Russia. There is a vast table- 
Photo by E, Landor Ealin, . . a 
cea omer Bahai ee. Z land of many thousands of miles in extent, intersected by 
caravan routes to all the old countries of the ancients, 
4 good. specimen of this variety is always large and aed ai . 
- Jinely furred and it is not astonishing to hear of attempts being made 
ths 
