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 254 but bitterly, the perpetual murder of their offspring. Cases, indeed, are recorded of indifference, of neglect, and even of cold-blooded butchery on the part of young cat mothers; but they count for little when contrasted with the overwhelming evidences of care and affection. M. Pierquin de Gembloux, in his "Traite de la Folie des Animaux," asserts that female cats occasionally betray a jealous detestation of their kittens, and instances a Spanish Angora who destroyed all her young at their birth, twice only sparing male kittens, which she ignored, but permitted—through some cold caprice—to live.

More repellant still are the authenticated stories—happily very few—of pussies who prefer their own selfish ease to the joys of motherhood. Of two such cases I have melancholy knowledge. One was that of an English cat who so neglected her first litter that the poor little things were in danger of perishing through starvation. To prevent this catastrophe, and teach her the nature of her duties, she was shut up with her kittens in the tool-house; whereupon she indignantly trampled them to death, and, hiding the wee corpses in a corner, hastened, when the door was opened, to more luxurious quarters. She was young, and she was very pretty. Her master pardoned her, but showed, in a manner she could not mistake, his anger and disgust;