128 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
replace her by a braver officer. The little bull-terrier asks no bet- 
ter place than to accept the functions of the delinquent, and prom- 
ises to acquit himself better. I opine then for his official in- 
vestiture at the earliest date. I have all confidence in the word of 
the dog, and I have as a guarantee of his fidelity, experience. No 
cat would kill me twelve a minute, as I have seen done at Mont- 
fau9on by bull-terriers educated to the thing by English profes- 
sors, . It is no cat that would brave the attack of myriad rats to 
conquer a simple suffrage of esteem, and enable her owner to gain 
a fevf pieces of gold. In place of aspiring to such glory — the aim 
of noble hearts — the cat has. put her paw to a Judas contract with 
the rat of the sinks which it was her duty to slay. Let those who 
believe the cat incapable of such baseness, repair past midnight to 
the square of the Halles — there, by the stealthy glimmer of lamp- 
light, they may witness a sight that will harrow their souls with 
sad surprise, for they will see on every heap of filth a group of cats 
and rats supping together on good terms with each other, and fra- 
ternizing at the expense of man, dividing between them shamelessly 
the entrails of pigeons and rabbits. 
I never meet a cat marauding in the woods or in the fields with- 
out doing it the honor of a shot, and I heartily engage all my 
brothers in Saint Hubert to do like me. Almost always when the 
pies chatter and make a fuss in the parks, or in the little woods, 
near dwelling-houses, it is to indicate the presence of a cat on a 
tree. I have twenty times in my life attended to such calls, and 
every time I had the pleasure of ridding the country of a prowl- 
ing thief. The pies are like the jay-birds — wicked little journal- 
ists — on the, wmtch for all scandals, wffio cannot see any thing 
stolen without telling it everywhere. 
THE FERRET 
Does not play a great part, nor hold a great place in the do- 
mestic economy of man, but he .is more useful than he appears to 
be. He protects man against the rabbit ; and when a credible his- 
torian, such as Pliny, relates to you that the rabbit has upset 
cities, and that the inhabitants of one of the Balearic isles have 
