Page:The Book of Cats.djvu/71

Rh Every animal has its own way of killing and eating its prey. The fox leaves the legs and hinder parts of a hare or rabbit; the weasel and stoat eat the brains, and nibble about the head, and suck the blood; crows and magpies peck at the eyes; the dog tears his prey to pieces indiscriminately; the Cat always turns the skin inside out like a glove.

Mr. Buckland relates the case of a gamekeeper who bought up all the Cats in the neighbouring town, cut off their heads, and nailed them up as trophies of veritable captures in the woods. In a gamekeeper's museum, visited by the same writer, were no less than fifty-three Cats' heads staring hideously down from the shelves. There was a story attached to each head. One Cat was killed in such a wood; another in such a hedge-row; some in traps, some shot, some knocked on the head with a stick; but what was most remarkable was the different expression of countenance observable in each individual head. One had died fighting desperately to the last, and giving up its nine lives inch by inch. Caught in a trap, it had lingered the night through in dreadful agony, the pain of its entrapped limb causing it to make furious efforts to free itself, each effort but lending another torment to the wound.