A WATER-LOVING CAT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13499, 14 August 1907, Page 7

A WATER-LOVING CAT.

A tabby tom-cat which I reared from a kitten and which is now nearly three years old possesses, says F. T. Bullen, the well-known author, in a letter to the Spectator, more amiable characteristics and paradoxical peculiarities than I have ever known a cat have before, and I have loved cats all my life. He bathes like a seal, having taught himself in a sponge-bath when about three months old, and thoroughly enjoys a romp with my big Labrador dog afterwards to get dry. He is a perfect demon for fledgling birds, walking all over the front of the ivy>-clad house and hooking them from their nests, very often pouching fourteen a day. Yet he lies in the dining-room, where a goldfinch, a siskin and a linnet fly backwards and forwards continuously, often brushing close past his head, and of them he never takes the slightest notice. As I write he is mothering a belated chicken which was extracted from its shell by ourselves this morning, the hen having left the nest with twelve others. It is snuggling between the cat's hindlegs and peeping out between them most comically. I must add that this cat has never been beaten or trained in any way except by a quiet word.

The whole of the North Island is enjoying warm weather to-day. The temperature at New Plymouth at 9 o'clock this morning was 53 deg. The weather report from Manukau heads shows that the water on the bar continues smooth.