nature.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1629, 5 October 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

nature.

Tales of Animals.

Several yeara ago, writes a correspondent, we had a cat we all thought a great deal of, but she wag a liUlo mote teaemd in the bestowal ol hex affections. She seemed to e&rft for no one very much, except for my eldest daughter and myself, and if a man or boy came into the house Bb.B would leave immediately. The summer that I speak of she had threp young kittens. When they were abont two weeka old I was Bitting in the cookroom one day, when I noticed the cat ooming in, and thought something was the matter with her, but did not get up to see. She went and laid down under the stove, but was uneasy and kept moving and looking out toward na. I forgot to mention that one or two men were aleo in the house, but pretty soon they went oat, when she went directly to her kittens, took one and carried it to my daughter, who exclaimed : ! " What is the matter with puEsy ?" Before I had lime to look she had brought another to me, and as she laid it down she looked at me, and, making a most pitiful noise, stretched out and died, and we found upon looking that she had been cut nearly in two. She had waited until the men left the room, aa if she was afraid of them, and then bad looked out for the welfare of her offspring i tho best she knew how, by bringing them to i i those she loved, and the look on her faco was as earnest an appeal ac a human countenance could have expressed. One of the children had, a year ago this summer, a tame crow which showed a great deal of shrewdness, or sense, or reason, whichever you choose to call it. They kept him out in the orchard near an old lounge that , was! placed under the trees, and there just i loom eaonsh loi his little body to get undoi it. When they first had him cut there the | hens would get nearly all the food, and he, being afrsid of them, would hop off under ths lounge and soold away at them ; but after a day or two ho would begin just as Boon 88 his food was brought to him to oarry it down under the lounge. He would not stop to eat a mouthful until he had got it all well out of reach, and then when the hens came around he would sii there arid take a mouthful and then chuokla and chatter and seem to eDjoy his meals all the better because the hens had to stand ronnd and look at him, but couldn't get any of it.