It has been supposed that I denied the cat the power of sleeping, but this must have arisen entirely from a misconception of my expression; for although I was not aware of their sleeping so soundly, as I am now informed is sometimes the case, yet I always knew they slept in some degree. M. Pasumot, of the academy at Dijon, has communicated to me a letter on this subject; he says, "Although the cat sleeps seldom, it is very sound, and might sometimes be considered as a kind of lethargy. I have had at least ten instances; a favourite cat used to lay upon the feet of my bed; one night I pushed him away, but found him so immoveable that I conceived him to be dead. I pulled and tossed him about for some time before he shewed any kind of life, when at last he began to awake, but it was even then very slowly. This sound sleep, and difficulty of awaking cats, I have often observed; and I am acquainted with a gentleman who has also been witness of their sleeping in this sound manner, and which he says is always at the time of great heat, or previous to stormy weather." M. de Lestrie, a merchant of Chalons, in Champagne, has remarked to me, that the breath of cats frequently exhales an odour resembling musk; particularly when they purr and are tranquil, or when suddenly alarmed and make a hissing noise, from which he inclines to conclude that there are some vessels in the breast of a cat filled with an aromatic quality; but nothing of this nature is to be discovered by anatomy. In my former history of this animal, I remarked there were cats in China, whose ears were pendant, but as this variety is not found in any other place, it is possibly an animal of a different species; and I am led to this supposition from there being an animal called _Sumxu_, mentioned by travellers, which they say they can compare to nothing but the cat, which it greatly resembles. It is found among the Chinese, who are extremely partial to it, both on account of its beauty, its hair being of a bright black or yellow colour, and because it readily destroys rats.