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Page:The cat. Its natural history, varieties, and management.djvu/150

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THE CAT.

ready to enter the circulation, and contains all the most nutritive part of the food in a condition fit for building up the animal structures, and replacing the waste which is always taking place. It is only by the consideration of this fact that we can understand how a few small worms can so rapidly cause the bearer to waste away.”

And now, in concluding, may I suggest that there is “a time to kill, and a time to heal,” and that when a favourite cat is really ill, in pain, or has met with a serious accident, it is often both wise and merciful to drown or shoot the poor animal effectually, and without delay. Drowning, as I have before observed, is, perhaps, the simplest and the least painful of the ordinary methods of destruc-