THE CAT'S TOILETTE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,-You do mention my friend the cat in your charming little paper• on "Animals' Toilettes," but hardly, I submit, with that emphasis that is her due. It is not perhaps generally known that the cat bad the same habits of personal refinement in India hundreds of years ago that she has now in England. But this is proved by the fact that her Sanscrit name, " milrgiira," means the animal that is always cleaning itself. (M. Mfiller's "Lectures," i., 419.1
I think this is interesting and honourable to my feline friend. It would be nice to know how many years it took before such a practice became the second nature which it now is to her. Perhaps Mr. Huxley or Mr. Romanes could work the sum. I should like also to be assured, on good authority, what I have always believed, that " Puss " is a corruption of " Pasht," the name of the great Egyptian cat-goddess ; so that each time we use what Archbishop Whately called the "vocative case of cat," we invoke that terrible divinity.-I am, Sir, &c.,
Lower Sydenhans, S.E., September 29th. G. GROVE.
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