[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—During six weeks which I spent at the Diablerets, in Switzerland, several years ago, I had the pleasure of making acquaintance with a very remarkable cat. His mistress, a very clever and interesting lady, nearly related to a celebrated Independent divine, brought him with her to the hotel, and opened his basket in her room. This done, puss looked about him, reconnoitred the locality, and then walked out leisurely, to spend his day in the adjacent fields and woods, returning at night to his bed and supper in his mistress's room. Miss " L.' assured me that she had carried the cat all over the Con- tinent with her, and that this was his invariable practice. Perhaps, if this letter should fall under her notice, she will favour us with further details respecting her intelli- gent compagnon de voyage. Histories of exceptionally clever and affectionate animals, like the delightful one of " Martin '' in your last issue, are of special value, if they cause us. to secog- nise the neglected truth that both the moral and the intellectual qualities of the higher animals vary in individuals between the poles of something like heroism and baseness, genius and idiocy. It is as absurd to talk of " the cat " or " the dog " being this or that, as of " the man " being so. Why do we not take 'more care to keep up the breeds of the more gifted brutes, and let the foolish and ill-grained ones perish P Is it because our dog- shows and cat-shows make much of some trifle of external form or colour, and totally disregard (except in the case of the sheep-dog trials) all the qualities of the creatures' minds and
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