This does not happen every year, but only at intervals, for it is
noticed that mice abound very much more in some seasons than others. The
extraordinary multiplication of these creatures was the means of
providing food for the cats that had been abandoned in the towns, and
came forth into the country in droves. Feeding on the mice, they became,
in a very short time, quite wild, and their descendants now roam the
forest.

In our houses we still have several varieties of the domestic cat, such
as the tortoise-shell, which is the most prized, but when the
above-mentioned cats became wild, after a while the several varieties
disappeared, and left but one wild kind. Those which are now so often
seen in the forest, and which do so much mischief about houses and
enclosures, are almost all greyish, some being striped, and they are
also much longer in the body than the tame. A few are jet black; their
skins are then preferred by hunters.

Though the forest cat retires from the sight of man as much as possible,
yet it is extremely fierce in defence of its young, and instances have
been known where travellers in the woods have been attacked upon
unwittingly approaching their dens. Dropping from the boughs of a tree
upon the shoulders, the creature flies at the face, inflicting deep
scratches and bites, exceedingly painful, and sometimes dangerous, from
the tendency to fester. But such cases are rare, and the reason the
forest cat is so detested is because it preys upon fowls and poultry,
mounting with ease the trees or places where they roost.

Almost worse than the mice were the rats, which came out of the old
cities in such vast numbers that the people who survived and saw them
are related to have fled in fear. This terror, however, did not last so