crying girl, and having given her with one of her paws so smart a blow upon the cheek as to draw blood, walk back again with the utmost gravity to her place under the stove. As this cat was by no means of a malicious disposition, for she had grown up together with the younger children of the family, and never designedly scratched any of them, it seems that her intention upon this occasion was to chastise the pettish girl, and put an end to her troublesome cries, in order that she might herself be able to finish her morning nap without further interruption.* Zoological Anecdotes. In the "Orleans Collection" of pictures there was a fine painting of a "Concert of Cats," by F. Breughel, from whence there is a print, among the engravings of that gallery, sufficiently meritorious and whimsical to deserve a place here; and therefore it is represented in the sketch on the present page. In justice, to the justice done to it, Mr. Samuel Williams must be mentioned as the artist who both drew and engraved it. The fixed attention of the feline performers is exceedingly amusing, and by no means unnatural; for it appears by the notes that mice is their theme, and they seem engaged in a catch. Breughel's Concert of Cats. Ye rats, in triumph elevate your ears! So sings Mr. Huddesford, in a "Monody on the Death of Dick, an Academical Cat," with this motto, "MI-CAT inter omnes." Hor. Carm. Lib. i. Ode 12. He brings his cat Dick from the Flood, and consequently through Rutterkin, a cat who was "cater-cousin to the greatgreat-great-great-great-great-great-greatgreat-grandmother of Grimalkin, and first cat in the caterie of an old woman, who was tried for bewitching a daughter of the countess of Rutland in the beginning of the sixteenth century." The monodist connects him with cats of great renown in the annals of witchcraft; a science whereto they have been allied as closely as poor old women, one of whom, it appears, on the authority of an old pamphlet entitled "Newes from Scotland," &c. printed in the year 1591, "confessed that she took a cat and christened it, &c. and that in the night following, the said cat was conveyed into the middest of the sea by all these witches sayling in their RIDDLES, or CIVES, and so left the said cat right before the towne of Leith in Scotland. This done, there did arise such a tempest at sea as a greater hath not been seen, &c. Againe it is confessed, that the said christened cat was the cause of the kinges majestie's shippe, at his coming forthe of Denmarke, had a contrarie winde to the rest of the shippes then being in his companie, which thing was most straunge and true, as the kinges majestie acknowledgeth, for when the rest of the shippes had a fair and good winde, then was the winde contrarie, and altogether against his majestie," &c. All sorts of cats, according to Huddesford, lamented the death of his favourite, whom he calls "premier cat upon the catalogue," and who, preferring sprats to all other fish,— "Had swallow'd down a score without remorse, "Calumnious cats who circulate faux pas, And learned cats who talk their husbands mad; Fastidious cats who pine for costly cates, And jealous cats who catechise their mates; Cat-prudes who, when they're ask'd the question, squall, And ne'er give answer categorical; Uncleanly cats, who never pare their nails, Cat-grandams vex'd with asthmas and catarrhs, "Yet, while I chant the cause of RICHARD's end, Ye sympathizing cats, your tears suspend! Then shed enough to float a dozen whales, And use, for pocket-handkerchiefs, your tails!— "Ah! tho' thy bust adorn no sculptur'd shrine, Tho' no funereal cypress shade thy tomb For thee the wreaths of Paradise shall bloom. There, while GRIMALKIN's mew her RICHARD greets, E'en now I see, descending from his throne, Thy venerable cat, O Whittington! The kindred excellence of RICHARD hail, And wave with joy his gratulating tail! There shall the worthies of the whisker'd race 1111 Shall smooth for tabby swains their yielding fur, Cats neither like to be put out of their way, nor to be kept out of their food: In cloisters, wherein people are immured in Roman catholic countries, to keep or make them of that religion, it is customary to announce the hours of meals by ringing a bell. In a cloister in France, a cat that was kept there was used never to receive any victuals till the bell rung, and she therefore never failed to be within hearing of it. One day, however, she happened to be shut up in a solitary apartment, and the bell rang in vain, as far as regarded her. Being some hours after liberated from her confinement, she ran, half famished, to the place where a plate of victuals used generally to be set for her, but found none this time. In the afternoon the bell was heard ringing at an unusual hour, and when the people of the cloister came to see what was the cause of it, they found the cat hanging upon the bell-rope, and setting it in motion as well as she was able, in order that she might have her dinner served up to her.* There is a surprising instance of the sensibility of cats to approaching danger : In the year 1783, two cats, belonging to a merchant at Messina, in Sicily, announced to him the approach of an earthquake. Before the first shock was felt, these two animals seemed anxiously to endeavour to work their way through the floor of the room in which they were. Their master observing their fruitless efforts, opened the door for them. At a second and third door, which they like wise found shut, they repeated their efforts, and on being set completely at liberty, they ran straight through the street, and out of the gate of the town. The merchant, whose curiosity was excited by this strange conduct of the cats, followed them into the fields, where he again saw them scratching and burrowing in the earth. Soon after there was a violent shock of an earthquake, and many of the * Zoological Anecdotes. Huddesford. houses in the city fell down, of which the merchant's was one, so that he was indebted for his life to the singular forebodings of his cats.* Few who possess the faculty of hearing, and have heard the music of cats, would desire the continuance of their "sweet voices," yet a concert was exhibited at Paris, wherein cats were the performers. They were placed in rows, and a monkey beat time to them. According as he beat the time, so the cats mewed; and the historian of the fact relates, that the diversity of the tones which they emitted produced a very ludicrous effect. This exhibition was announced to the Parisian public by the title of Concert Miaulant.† Cats were highly esteemed by the Egyptians, who under the form of a cat symbolized the moon, or Isis, and placed it upon their systrum, an instrument of religious worship and divination. Count Caylus engraved a cat with two kittens, which, while he supposes one of the kittens to be black and the other white, he presumes to have represented the phases of the moon. Cats are supposed to have been brought into England from the island of Cyprus, by some foreign merchants who came hither for tin. In the old Welsh laws, a kitten from its birth till it could see was valued at a penny; when it began to mouse at twopence; and after it had killed mice at fourpence, which was the price of a calf. Wild cats were kept by our ancient kings for hunting. The officers who had the charge of these cats seem to have had appointments of equal consequence with the masters of the king's hounds; they were called catatores. Gray's elegy on a cat drowned in a globe of water with gold fishes is wellknown. Dr. Jortin wrote a Latin epitaph on a favourite cat. JORTIN'S EPITAPH ON HIS CAT Imitated in English Worn out with age and dire disease, a cat, FLORAL DIRECTORY. Marsh Grounsel. Senecio paludotus. August 14. S. Eusebius, 3rd Cent. St. Eusebius, It is stated in The Times, on the authority of an "Evening Paper," that two beautiful old trees in Nottingham park during the hot weather (of July and August, 1825,) shed all their leaves, and were as completely stripped as they are usually in November. Their appearance afterwards was more surprising. Wet weather came, they put forth new leaves and were as fully clothed in August as they were before the long season of the dry hot weather. THE WITHERED LEAF. Sever'd from thy slender stalk, Nothing know I!-tempests' strife Whelm'd the tree that bore me. Zephyr's fickle breath,-the blast From the mountain's breezy height Wheresoever wafts the wind, Fearless, uncomplaining. On I go—where all beside Like myself are going; There like beauty, frail and brief, Fades the pride of roses; There the laurel's honour'd leaf- Bernard Bartom. Star, Nov. 3, 1735 |
