74 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

puss her usual breakfast, great curiosity was excited on seeing
a third added to the number; and the astonishment was still
greater when the third was discovered to be a young rat
which the cat had taken from its nest in the night-time, and
brought home as a companion to the kittens she was then
nursing. The young rat was very lively, and was treated by
the cat with the same attention and care as if it were one
of her own offspring.”
The Catasa The distances that cats will travel, finding
Traveller. their way with unerring instinct many miles across
country of which there seems no reason to suppose them to have
had previous knowledge is very remarkable. Mrs. Bowdich
records the case of a cat who disliking her new home,
returned to her old one, in doing which, she had to cross
two rivers, one of them about eighty feet broad and two feet
and a half deep, running strong; the other wider and more
rapid, but less deep. Cats are said to have found their way from
Edinburgh to Glasgow, and one to the writer's knowledge
returned from Dover to Canterbury after being carried from
thence by rail. Captain Brown gives the following remark-
able instance. In June, 1825, a farmer, residing in the neigh-
bourhood of Ross, sent a load of grain to Gloucester, a
distance of about sixteen miles. The waggoners loaded in
the evening, and started early in the morning. On unload-
ing at Gloucester, a favourite cat, belonging to the farmer,.
was found among the sacks, with two kittens of very recent
birth. The waggoner very humanely placed puss and her
young in a hay-loft, where he expected they would remain
in safety, until he should be ready to depart for home. On
his return to the loft shortly afterwards, neither cat nor kittens
were to be found, and he reluctantly left town without them.
Next morning the cat entered the kitchen of her master’s house
with one kitten in her mouth. It was dead; but she placed
it before the fire, and without seeking food, o indulging,
for a moment, in the genial warmth of stic her dome hearth