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action is that the cats are attracted by the baby’s breath because it is sweet. They will tell you that cats have been caught in the act, and give much detailed evidence. The story ends with the killing of the cat, and a great commotion to restore the gasping baby’s breath. Physicians do not credit the breath-sucking part of the stories, and I will suggest one or two partial explanations of the phenomena, Firstly, there might have lingered about the baby’s mouth fragments of a recent lunch that the cat was removing when found with its mouth near the baby’s; and secondly, the baby’s gasping may have been caused by fear of the cat, or by the alarming commotion on its account among its relatives.
Hold your breath, and you can handle wasps and bees without fear of being stung. This recipe has often been tried with complete success. Some say that the philosophy of it is that holding the breath closes the pores of the skin, and thus makes a person impregnable to the wasp’s sting. I fancy, however, that the believer insures his safety by handling the wasps much more surely than the timid unbeliever would, and does
