Cats see well by night, and were often, and especially black ones, believed to be the witches’ familiars, and therefore regarded with fear and aversion. It was held that they had power to raise a gale, and on board ship the malevolent disposition with which they were credited has made them in an especial degree unpopular shipmates. Pussy was thought to particularly provoke a storm by playing with any article of wearing apparel, by rubbing her face, or by licking her fur the wrong way; she was sheltered from rough usage however by the belief that provoking her would bring a gale, while drowning her would cause a regular tempest. In Germany there is a belief that anyone who makes a cat his enemy will be attended at his funeral by rats, and heavy rain. As cats see well by night, and are given to wandering abroad at unholy hours, they were connected with the baleful influences of the moon. Freye, the Norse goddess, was attended by cats, and Friday, her especial day, was always considered unlucky. The ruffling of the water by the rising wind is called a cat’s paw, and cats are said to smell a coming gale, while all must be familiar with that tempestuous state of affairs known as “raining cats and dogs.” In Cornwall, and on some other parts of the coast, the people say that a spectral dog, called Shony, is sometimes seen, and that this always predicts a storm. Some persons have a marked antipathy to cats. Henry III. of France fainted if he caught sight of one, and Napoleon I. had almost as strong a feeling and failing. Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice it will be remembered, says:— “Some men there are that love not a gaping pig, Some that are mad if they behold a cat.” It is well known that cats have a wonderful knack of falling on their feet, and they are so tenacious of life that they are ordinarily credited with having nine lives, though it is proverbially held that care will kill even a cat. Not only does Shakespeare refer to cat-lore in Macbeth in “the poor cat i’ the adage,” but in Romeo and Juliet this old belief in the strong hold that Pussy has on life is distinctly referred to in the first scene of the third act:— “What would’st thou have with me? Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.” The cat again appears in the legend of the indomitable cats of Kilkenny that fought till a little fluff was all the record of that sanguinary struggle, and we have all of us heard of the special power of facial expression of the cats of Cheshire.