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 96 streaming on the wind. The ancient Burgundians adopted the cat as their heraldic device, to intimate an abhorrence of servitude; and Clotilde, the fair and saintly Burgundian wife of Clovis, had blazoned on her armorial bearings a cat sable springing at a mouse. The same symbol served many a noble house. The Katzen family carried an azure shield, with a cat argent holding a rat. The Chetaldie family of Limoges carried two cats argent on an azure shield. The princely Delia Gatta of Naples bore a cat—a splendid cat couchant—on their crest; and in Scotland the well-known cognizance of the Clan Chattan was a wild-cat, with the significant motto, "Touch not the cat but" (i. e. without) "the glove." Of a truth, Cervantes strayed not so far into extravagance when he wrote of the "ever victorious and never vanquished" Timonel of Carcajona, Prince of New Biscay, who carried upon his shield a golden cat, with the expressive motto, "Miau," in honour of his lady, the beautiful and peerless Miaulina, daughter of the great Alfeniquen of the Algarve.

More peaceful memories cling around the ancient sign-boards, on which Pussy was ever a favourite figure. "La Maison du Chat qui Pelote," and "La Maison du Chat qui Pêche" commended themselves especially to French merchants; and M. Champfleury sadly regrets the disappearance of