HORSE AND CAT.
From a Photo. by J. Marks.
The ladies who have risen to such an elevated position in life are mother and daughter. The sedate matron is fully alive to the importance of the occasion, and has adopted an easy, graceful pose; while the youngster, frisky and somewhat shy, was with difficulty persuaded to settle comfortably down. Mother cat is an animal of very self-contained and amiable disposition. She has contracted a fast friendship with two white rabbits belonging to the coachman's little boy. They live in a hutch in the stables, and are often allowed a little liberty for a frolic with puss, who chases them in and out of an empty stall.
From Covington, U.S.A., comes another remarkable instance. Mr. E. E. Cone, of that town, has a hen that displays a remarkably perverted maternal instinct. One of the neighbours has a cat with four small kittens. The cat would be faithful to her offspring were she not prevented by the following circumstance. This particular hen had been sitting for some time when she suddenly conceived the idea that the care of the kittens was more to her liking. She, therefore, promptly drove the mother cat away and took possession of the kits. No hen-mother ever watched over her brood with greater care than has this one over her mewing, squirming litter of kittens. The kittens offer no objection, and, with the exception of the old cat, who looks on at a safe distance, all is serene in this anomalous family. In our photograph the hen is shown endeavouring to cover the four kittens with her wings, but it does not seem a very easy task.
HEN AND KITTENS.
From a Photo. by W.J. Cone, Covington, Ill.
Extraordinary as this instance may seem, we have in a way a parallel to it. We see a cat taking under her charge some newly-born chicks in much the same way as the mother-hen did with the kittens. Mr. C. K. Eaton, of Melbourne House, Montpelier, Bristol, very kindly sends us the photograph.
It appears that, through some inexplicable reason of her own, the mother of the chicks deserted them almost immediately after being hatched, and consequently, there being no other means of rearing them, they were for some time kept in the kitchen, where, after a few days, they became fast friends with puss, who proved a splendid substitute for the mother hen. She seldom left them, and when they were able to get about she, for a long time, followed them about the garden. The sight, needless to add, was an extremely pathetic one.