NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
395 
i,s in one of my woods. The place is a regnlar honeycomb of 
burrows, and the man carefully netted the holes before putting 
in his ferrets. Imagine his surprise at seeing one of his nets 
carried away and go rolling down the steep incline to the bottom 
of the bank, and to find his captive to be a cat ! " 
Mr. Eeed of Wick also writes : — " In one of the islands of 
Orkney, where rabbits are very numerous, the inhabitants crop 
short the ears of their cats to prevent them going into rabbit 
holes. The ears being cut very close allows the sand to get 
into them, which so annoys poor puss that she never attempts a 
second time to poach in rabbit-warrens, which are abundant in 
the sandy parts of the island." 
Cats Suckling Haees. — Many cases have been recorded in 
Land and Water of cats suckling rabbits, young squirrels, &c. 
1 agree with White, that the cat suckles these foster-children 
not out of affection for them, but simply to get rid of her milk. 
It is not at all impossible that Kornulus andEemns were suckled 
by a wolf 
House cats are great nidsances at the Zoological Gardens. 
They prowl about the parks at night and easily get over or 
through the fences into the Gardens, frightening and. disturbing 
the valuable pheasants and other birds l3y walking on the top 
of the cages. Mr. Bartlett does his best to catch these cats. 
They are skinned and given to the eagles to eat. The skinned 
cats are amazingly like rabbits ; when the head and paws are 
cut off it is difficult to tell a cat from a rabbit. On Saturdays 
the keepers bring the tails of the cats they have caught to the 
office and are paid sixpence per tail. 
Most of the cats captured in the Gardens are full grown 
males, that appear to live in sheds and oid-lwiiscs. I have reason 
to believe the greater part of these poor cats are the result of 
people allowing their female cats to rear more kittens than they 
afterwards like to keep, and which, when they grow up, become 
troublesome, and are then turned adrift in the hope they may 
find a home. Failing this they turn wild, and become a perfect 
nuisance by killing and frightening all the birds and small 
animals they can find. 
The Ottek, p. 104.— I cordially sympathise with the delight of 
White on examining his twenty-one-pound otter. I can, how- 
ever, beat this animal in weight and size. In January, 1871, my 
friend, Dr. Xornian, of Yarmouth, sent me a magnificent otter, 
packed in a baby's cradle. He wrote : " I believe this otter to be 
the largest ever taken in East Anglia, and if well fed his weight 
