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VEETEBRATA. 
first witli milk, and afterward witli baked meat mixed witli rice. It soon became even tamer 
than a cat, for it came when called, and followed me, although at liberty, in the country. One 
day I brought this animal a small water-serpent alive, being desirous to know how far his instinct 
would carry him against a being with Avhich he was as yet totally unacquainted. His first 
emotion seemed to be astonishment mixed with anger, for his hair became erect ; but j'n an 
THE CTNICTIS. 
instant he slipped behind the reptile, and with remarkable swiftness and agility leaped upon its 
head, seized it, and crushed it between his teeth. This essay, and the new food, seemed to have 
awakened in him an innate and destructive voracity, which till then had given way to the 
gentleness he had acquired from education. I had about my house several curious kinds of fowls, 
