But the snakes devour comparatively few frogs. Impudent kites and crows
are their most implacable destroyers; and there is a very pretty weasel
which lives under the kura (godown) and which does not hesitate to take
either fish or frogs out of the pond, even when the lord of the manor is
watching. There is also a cat which poaches in my preserves, a gaunt
outlaw, a master thief, which I have made sundry vain attempts to
reclaim from vagabondage. Partly because of the immorality of this cat,
and partly because it happens to have a long tail, it has the evil
reputation of being a nekomata, or goblin cat.

It is true that in Izumo some kittens are born with long tails; but it
is very seldom that they are suffered to grow up with long tails. For
the natural tendency of cats is to become goblins; and this tendency to
metamorphosis can be checked only by cutting off their tails in
kittenhood. Cats are magicians, tails or no tails, and have the power of
making corpses dance. Cats are ungrateful 'Feed a dog for three days,'
says a Japanese proverb, 'and he will remember your kindness for three
years; feed a cat for three years and she will forget your kindness in
three days.' Cats are mischievous: they tear the mattings, and make
holes in the shoji, and sharpen their claws upon the pillars of
tokonoma. Cats are under a curse: only the cat and the venomous serpent
wept not at the death of Buddha and these shall never enter into the
bliss of the Gokuraku For all these reasons, and others too numerous to
relate, cats are not much loved in Izumo, and are compelled to pass the
greater part of their lives out of doors.

11

Not less than eleven varieties of butterflies have visited the
neighbourhood of the lotus pond within the past few days. The most