Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/104

94 on a tomb at Gurneh, a hunter is represented in his boat in the marshes as about to hurl his throw-stick at a covey of birds, while a cat by his side is on the alert to spring upon the game he is expected to bring down. Another picture (Fig. 3) represents the cat seizing a bird. This would involve going into the



water, an act to which our modern cats usually have a very strong dislike. If the Egyptian cats had the same feelings, they must have come under the discipline of skillful trainers. But there have been fisher cats in modern times. Mr. Ross, in his Book of Cats, tells of one that lived in 1829, which caught fish with great assiduity, and frequently brought them home alive. She taught another cat to fish, and they used to go out together, sometimes taking opposite sides of the river. Another story is quoted by the same author, of a cat at the battery in Plymouth, England, that was in the habit of diving into the sea, bringing up fish, and leaving them in the guard-room for the sailors. She was seven years old, and "as fond of the water as a Newfoundland dog," and hunted regularly along the rocks at the water's edge for her game, "ready to dive for it at a moment's notice." A cat described by Mr. Lawson Tait was a remarkable fisher, and would