ORTGINTOR “PUSS : 
Felis catus. It may seem to some so elaborate a diver- 
gence from obviousness to seek a foreign origin for a 
beast so exactly like a wild creature actually inhabiting 
these islands. The proof is largely antiquarian in its 
nature. If wild cats were really domesticated, how 
is it that we hear so little about them in the past ; and 
how is it that when legend or history does tell us any- 
thing, it is to emphasize their scarcity and value. 
Witness, for example, the story of Dick Whittington. 
His cat brought hima fortune. The very name “ puss ”’ 
is an indication of exotic origin. Some think it is an 
abbreviation of “ Persian,” and that in consequence 
we are to look upon Persia as the ancestral home of 
our fireside friends. Not so thinks the author of that 
most readable work, Gleanings from the Natural History 
of the Ancients. For Mr. Watson the name is a cor- 
ruption of Bubastis or Pasht, and suggests an Egyptian 
origin, which fits in well with the habitat of a wild cat 
Felis maniculata, and with the probable course of 
civilization and cats from Egypt along the Mediter- 
ranean to these shores of ours, Perhaps the “ poor 
cat’ who “‘ amat pisces, sed nof vult tingere plantas,” 
has retained its dread of water from a previous dwell- 
ing in a hot, sandy, and waterless desert. That there 
is no inherent dislike of water in the cat tribe is clearly 
shown by the fact that the tiger will swim across the 
river Amur in its northward wanderings, and to the 
island of Hong Kong in search of pigs, or perhaps 
coolies, while the East harbours also a carnivore which 
is actually known from its habitats as the “ Fishing 
cat.’ That the domestic cat has not been long 
“ civilized,” relatively speaking, is shown by its reten- 
tion of many of the habits of a wild animal. An able 
and ingenious writer, Dr. Louis Robinson, has lately 
discerned in the ways of tabbies many such traits. 
The fondness for sleeping coiled up and on an exposed 
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