[10] It is well known that cats have the power of turning themselves over in the air, so as to bring their legs undermost, when they fall, or are thrown, from a height; but how this desirable change of position is brought about or maintained, it is not very easy to explain. One would have supposed that the centre of gravity would have brought the _back_ undermost. To prove that these animals _do_ possess the power of turning over in the air, take a cat, or a kitten, and hold her by her four feet, two in each of your hands, with her back downwards, at about the height of the table from the ground. Now if you open both your hands suddenly, your assistant in the experiment will change her position almost as quickly as a shuttlecock turns round when struck by the battledore, and will alight safely on her feet. But if you hold her at a _very short_ distance from the ground, poor puss will not have time to execute her clever feat, and will fall on her back. Therefore, for her sake, practise this experiment _over a bed_. Here I must inform you, that Harvey, the gamekeeper, who had long been looking out for the destroyer, had this morning been informed by some boys who were nutting in the copse, that they had seen her running across an open space, with a fine cock pheasant in her mouth. Now the keeper had found, from his experience on two former occasions, that it was useless to fire small shot at an animal who had such a defence in her thick close fur, and who was too wary to allow him to approach very near. Therefore, giving his double-barrelled fowling-piece into the hands of his son, a lad of about fourteen, who accompanied him, he armed himself with a _rifle_, which is a gun made on purpose for throwing bullets very accurately, to a long distance. He left all his dogs at home, thinking they would be of more harm than use. Harvey and his boy had already been some hours in the wood, and were beginning to think that they had received false information, when young Dick, who was a remarkably sagacious, intelligent fellow, suddenly stopped his father, and pointed to some trees at a little distance. "Well, lad," whispered Harvey, "what dost see now?" "Look at those squirrels, father!" "I see 'em plain enough, but it won't do. Though if it wasn't for master's orders, I should like to try the rifle upon one of 'em, I must say." "No, no, father," replied Dick, "that isn't what I mean. But only look at them! They aint eating, nor doing nothing, but they have all got their heads one way, and they stick themselves up as if they were frightened at something. Depend upon it, father, the wild-cat isn't far from those squirrels, if she is in the wood at all."