Page:Natural History (1848).djvu/87

Rh journeyed only during the night, and must have resorted to many other precautions for the safety of her young."

The Cat is an affectionate mother; so jealously careful of the comfort of her young, that she will remove and hide them, if they are too much handled, or even inspected, particularly by strangers. Yet she will often bring them in succession in her mouth, and present them to the persons with whom she is familiar, evidently desiring their sympathy with her admiration of them. The playfulness of kittens is excessive: and it is hardly possible to observe their innocent gambols without a feeling of complacent gratification. We find animals in this Family which recede from the eminently typical character of the last described, though in general form and appearance they retain a certain resemblance to the Cats, particularly in the prevalence of stripes or spots upon the thick fur with which they are clothed, and in their long tails marked with bars of alternate hues. They have three false molars above, and four below, the anterior of which sometimes fall out; two tolerably large tuberculous teeth above, one only below, and two tubercles projecting forwards on the inner side of the lower carnivorous tooth, the rest of that tooth being tuberculous. The tongue is beset with sharp and rough papillæ, as in the Cats. The claws, for the most part, are