230 FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS 



rough its tongue is when it liclts your finger. You 

 have seen its eyes shine in the dark, and how the pupil 

 (tlie little dark spot in the centre that lets in the 

 light to make it see) can be made large or small. You 

 have watched it steal along softly on its hunting trips 

 as cautioiisly as a man, and you have seen it give a 

 mouse or bird the fatal blow with its heavy paw, that 

 both stuns and holds like a trap. It is a cat's skill as a 

 bird hunter that made me banish it years ago from the 

 farm, for a terrier will keep the rats and mice in order 

 quite as well. 



" You also know, or at least I am sure that Olive 

 does, how a cat steals away to find some very private 

 place for a nest for her little blind kittens, and how 

 much pride she takes in cuddling them in her arms and 

 suckling them until they can lap milk or catch mice for 

 themselves." 



" Indeed I do, for a cat once made a nest on a shelf 

 in a box where I kept my best hat all trimmed with 

 ostrich feathers and velvet ! " said Olive. 



" Our Wildcats seek out the most inaccessible places 

 in rock ledges and tree hollows as homes for their kit- 

 tens. When I was a boy I found a Wildcat's nest in 

 an old chestnut log, in tlie wood hy the grazing pasture 

 at the other side of the farm. No, you need not look 

 worried, Dodo, there are none about now ! 



" It was the earlj^ part of May, and a party of us had 

 gone out to look for arbutus, Avhich made masses of 

 fragrant pink among the dead leaves. People all about 

 had been complaining of the Foxes and saying tliat they 

 were very bold, visiting some farm every night and yet 

 leaving no tracks. We lost chickens and ducks, quite 



