476 General Notes. [June, 
released. He started at once for home, though he was fully 
three days in reaching us. We imagined that the sounds 
of the church and schoolhouse bells in the village enabled 
him to find his way back. He had to cross a small stream, 
which would be quite a serious obstacle in the way of a cat, and 
this, doubtless, made his journey more protracted. But we never 
gave him away again! He had no fear of an dog he ever met, 
and in his younger days had the honor of soundly threshing sev- 
eral of them! I could set him upon any stray dog that happened 
to come upon the premises. He never failed to drive the in- 
truder off, and woe to the dog if he failed to “ git out” in a 
twinkling! Contrary to the prevailing disposition of common 
cats, he never stole anything! Neither choice beef nor Jersey 
milk on the pantry shelves ever tempted him to violate the 
eighth commandment. He was sick at the last about three weeks, 
hours before he died, as Isat holding his poor weary head in my 
left hand and stroking his rich glossy back. I was telling him 
how good he had been all his life long, and how sorry I was to 
deserted and lonesome—though he was “ only a cat.” We ee 
thought he would deserve a monument, and we feel that in —— 
ting his humble story to its pages, the AMERICAN Navn oo 
given him a proud and enduring one—Chas. Aldrich, We 
City, Towa, March, 188 1. ee 
BIRDs OuT OF PLace.—The red-wing blackbird (Age/ams me 
miceus) usually leaves this region by the middle of pane gs 
though if the weather continues mild, some of them Wi 
