48. _The COMMON CAT_ (Felis catus), _in its wild state, is distinguished from all the animals of the same tribe by having its tail marked with rings of different coloured hair._ _The body of the wild cat is marked with dusky stripes, of which three on the top of the back are lengthwise, whilst those on the sides are transverse and somewhat curved. Domestic cats are marked very variously; some are grey and striped, others variegated with black, white, and orange, and others are entirely black or white._ _Cats are found wild in woods of Europe, Asia, and America._ The savage disposition and great size of the wild cats render them the most formidable wild animals which are now left in Great Britain. In the southern and midland parts of England they have all been long destroyed; but, in the woods which border the lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland, and in several of the mountainous parts of Scotland, they are yet occasionally found. They have their lodgments in hollow trees, in the fissures of the rocks, and in deep and narrow holes on the face of dreadful precipices; from which, during the night chiefly, they issue forth in search of prey. This consists of hares, rabbits, and other quadrupeds, and also of various kinds of birds. Wild cats are caught in traps, more for the purpose of destroying them on account of the ravages they commit, than for any uses to which they can be converted. Their _skins_ were formerly in request as fur for the lining of robes and other garments; though they do not appear to have been held in much esteem. The _domestic cat_ (Fig. 3) is a subdued variety of the wild species; and although it still partakes, in some degree, of the native ferocity of its original, it is a clean and useful inmate in our houses. By the ancient Egyptians cats were considered objects of sacred veneration; it was accounted a capital crime wilfully to kill one of them, and whoever even accidentally killed one was liable to severe punishment. We are informed by Herodotus, the Greek historian, that, whenever a cat died a natural death, the inhabitants of the house were accustomed to shave their eye-brows in token of sorrow, and the animal so dying was embalmed and nobly interred. The Turks entertain a sacred respect for cats; and the ancient Britons so greatly esteemed them that, in the tenth century, their price was inserted even in the laws of the land: a kitten, before it could see, having been rated at a penny (equal to at least five shillings of present money); as soon as proof could be had of its having caught a mouse, the price was raised to two-pence; and a tolerably good mouser was considered worth four-pence.