well deny the animosity of Celt and Saxon, on the score of individual friendship, or chance deed of mercy. Like the deep-rooted hatred of nations, alien in race, yet thrust by fate upon one another's border lands, is the hatred that never sleeps in the hearts of these sworn enemies. The dog, a generous and chivalric beast, degenerates into a cruel bully the instant that he sees a cat. The cat, brave and courteous, falls into a sheer frenzy of rage and fear when she encounters her ancestral foe. St. George Mivart tells us that this antipathy—the inheritance of ages—is so strong in kittens only a few days old, that they have manifested both anger and terror, spitting with comical fury when touched by a hand that had recently fondled a dog.
Mr. Louis Robinson, in his interesting volume on "Wild Traits in Tame Animals," asserts that the spitting of young kittens, and their beautiful striped fur, are both due to "protective mimicry," nature's clever scheme for the deception of her stronger children, and the preservation of her weaker ones. She taught the kitten in its savage state to spit when disturbed or frightened, so that prowling enemies, like dog or wolf, might mistake the sound for the hissing of snakes; and she banded its fur so that birds of prey, glancing down from afar, might think the helpless creature a coiled serpent, and
