A curious instance of the selection of their food by Cats and Dogs is given by the same author:--“As my neighbour was housing a rick, he observed that his Dogs devoured all the little red Mice that they could catch, but rejected the common Mice; and that his Cats ate the common Mice, refusing the red.” This may be partly accounted for by the fact that the little Harvest Mouse has scarcely any trace of the odour which makes the domestic kind disagreeable, and which odour is not disliked, or perhaps is hardly perceived, by the Cat. Both Dogs and Cats, when the corn-ricks are being housed for threshing, will go on helping the farmer and his men for hours, killing Mice by hundreds and by thousands long after they have been satiated by eating them. These Mouse _battues_ illustrate the intelligence of the Cat as well as of the Dog, in a quick understanding of what relates to their own interest; for they know immediately what the removal of the thatch from the rick means, and, as it were, scent their prey before it is unearthed. Yet the food-treasures in these ricks are not unknown to the Cats, who night by night for months, perhaps, have caught and regaled themselves upon stragglers from the swarm. But although of most domestic Cats it may be said, “Rats and Mice, and such small deer, Have been _Tom’s_ food for many a year,” yet, in districts that have the game well “preserved,” this sort of diet is often exchanged for that of nobler prey, and the tame Cat will stray for months from the homesteads for young Rabbits, Leverets, and the Partridge covey. This poaching is almost sure to end in death, as these Cats are closely watched by the keepers. One curious thing about these poaching habits is that they run in families. As Mr. Darwin says, one Cat “naturally takes to catching Rats, and another Mice, and these tendencies are known to be inherited. One Cat, according to Mr. St. John, always brought home game birds, another Hares or Rabbits, and another hunted on marshy ground, and almost nightly caught Woodcocks or Snipes.” A Cat who has once taken to habits like these soon loses her taste for human society and a comfortable fireside, and becomes quite wild and almost as untamable as one of the actually feral species. Many years ago, in a village where we were then living, a female half-wild Cat made furtive visits to an old and extensive farmstead for the sake of the dove-cot Pigeons, and for the safer rearing of her young. These she would deposit, not in-doors, like our tame, pet Cats, but generally in the fagot-stack, and once in a corner of the thick house-thatch, in which was a labyrinth of passages made by the grey Rat. This Cat would form no friendship with us, but made almost demoniacal demonstrations of her combined hatred and fear. Her swearing and her spitting were accomplishments learned by her kittens as soon as they could see, and no care of ours could tame them.