ample opportunities for observation. He is ill pleased with hasty inferences where the cat is concerned, and even thinks them a little impertinent, as indicating a tendency on the writer's part to claim familiar acquaintance with an animal who politely, but resolutely, declines familiarity. No two cats, says Mr. Lang, have the same traits. One eats his dinner like a gentleman. His ancestors evidently lived in hermit-like seclusion. Another prefers raiding his companion's dish. His forefathers, by the same token, must have been accustomed to society. Even Mr. Robinson's conclusion that the tailless Manx cat is probably a representative of some ancient wild species, finds no favour in Mr. Lang's eyes. He has accounted long ago in a fashion satisfactory to himself, and on strict "principles of evolution," for this unfortunate animal's peculiarity.
"Man," he says, "is a Celtic island. The Celts (in Brittany at least) believe that if you tread on a cat's tail, a serpent will come out and sting you. This made people shy of cats with tails. But a tailless cat being born by a pure fluke (see Darwin on Sports), and transmitting its peculiarity to its offspring, these cats with no tails were especially adapted to their Celtic environment. People could make pets of them, without fear of serpents. The other cats were killed off, or died for lack of friendly
