As Paolo Uccello loved birds, so Gottfried Mind loved cats and became their special artist. He was born near the middle of the last century, in the town of Berne. There he lived, and there, in 1814, he died. Of poor and mean appearance, crabbed to all human kind, he was keenly alive to the ways and feelings, the tricks and graces of cat-kind. Bears, too, he liked, and for a while frequented the bear pit of Berne to study them. But cats were his first and abiding love, and to them he returned. Whatever their moods, whether sulky, grave or gay; in repose or in action, at every age--he reproduced them upon paper; and with such marvelous fidelity that he seems to have given Pussy a tenth and immortal life. His favorite cat used to sit for hours together upon his knee or shoulder, while he--if such were her pleasure--would remain motionless, so as not to disturb her rest. [Illustration: FRAGMENT. (_From Raphael’s frescoes in the Loggia of the Vatican._)] In our own time, two artists, more than all others, have been famous for their delineation of animal life; and both of these artists, one is glad to know, were genuinely fond of the creatures they painted. These two are, of course, Sir Edwin Landseer and Mlle. Rosa Bonheur. [Illustration: HENS AND CHICKENS. (_From Raphael’s frescoes in the Loggia of the Vatican._)] Landseer studied every animal he saw, but preferred dogs, horses, and deer, especially dogs. Fuseli, his master, used to speak of him as “my little dog-boy.” Pet after pet had its features transferred to canvas, and fine dogs were brought to him to be painted, exactly as their owners might go to Millais or Watts. They became in his hands something more than canine types; he saw in them individuals with characters and stories of their own. There is the Dog in High Life, and the Dog in Low Life; the tranquil big dog as Dignity, the impetuous little dog as Impudence. [Illustration: TWO OF GOTTFRIED MIND’S CATS. (_Plate II. from “Der Katzen-Raphael.”_)] Here a fine hound waits for the Countess (this dog, by the way, belonged to Lady Blessington, and was given to her by the at that time King of Naples); here, by a plain coffin, a collie waits for the master who will never return; and here two tiny silken spaniels guard a plumed hat and pair of gloves. These spaniels, which belonged to Robert Vernon, had an equally tragic fate--the Blenheim being killed by a fall from a table, and the King Charles by a fall through the staircase rails. Their picture is now in the National Gallery of London, where many a one lingers before it, admiring the great lustrous eyes, silken coats, and delicate, whimsical physiognomies of “The Cavalier’s Pets.” [Illustration: THE CAVALIER’S PETS. (_From the etching by Leon Richeton, after Sir Edwin Landseer, R. A._)]