30 DECEMBER 1922, Page 16

CAT AND MOUSE:

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Allow me to follow up my account of the brooding duck and the tennis-ball, which some of your readers may remember, with another curious incident. The Matron of these Homes, finding her sitting-room infested with mice, procured a kitten of about eight weeks. She left the kitten in her sitting-room while she presided at the midday dinner. On her return she brought a saucer of food (fish and potato), placed it on the floor, and put the kitten down to it. Ten minutes later she went to see if the kitten had finished its meal and found the kitten and a mouse eating out of the same saucer. On her approach the mouse " slowly ran away," and disappeared behind some furniture. What I want to know is whether this is a case of the fraternization of natural enemies, or whether the mouse had been previously caught and played with and was in that hypnotic state which some naturalists adduce as a proof that Nature is not so cruel as she seems ?-