CATS OF HISTORY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Having just read with delight and edification the account of a Martin," in your issue of to-day—an account worthy of a place in that most charming of all books ever dedicated by a great writer to the honour and glory of beloved animals, the Menagerie Infirm of Theophile Gautier—I send you two stories, as they were told to my boyhood, of cats connected with my own family,—in which, I may add, cat-worship has been for centuries a hereditary legacy. One, when its master was lying wounded well-nigh to death, watched for many days and nights at the door of his room ; would not be lured or driven away, till at last it was possible for the convalescent to receive his faithful and inconsolable friend, whose ecstacy may—or rather, may not—be imagined. So much for the charge of personal indifference brought against cats, by those who prefer the promiscuous and obtrusive caresses or solici- tations lavished by dogs on almost any stranger, to the choice and constant affection which cats, with the instinct peculiar to babies and themselves, reserve with such scrupulous self-respect for those in whom they recognise a true reciprocal attraction,—an unmistakable innate affinity.
My second story illustrates only that attachment to places which is more commonly recognised as a feline property, but illustrates it in so singular a degree, that it may, perhaps, be thought worthy of this passing record. A favourite cat—I know not whether the same as the hero' or heroine of the story just given—was conveyed to London from a country house in the depth of Northumberland, and missed immediately after arrival. About a week afterwards it arrived at its old home, half-starved, and wholly fallen from its high estate as a cat of quality and distinction, but recognisable by the household left in charge, having smelt or inquired its way back on foot along a course of some three hundred miles, which it had just before traversed in a carriage for the first time.—I am, Sir, &c., [Mr. Swinbarne's positive testimony we accept with pleasure.
His implied universal negative on the discrimination of dogs we reject with surprise and amusement.—En. Spectator.]
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