OFF: Rats, Cats, and packets of fags.

[Nick Medford]

In message <02f601c23e54$e2345290$e4a323d9 at bernard>, Richard
Lockwood <rich at BEERPOWEREDNOISEFRENZY.CO.UK> writes
>Get an Abysinnian cat.  Those bastards will take out anything.  We had one
>that brought in between fifteen and twenty-five rabbits a year, a live
>magpie (through the cat flap), game birds, and (once) a hare.

For many years my folks kept a cat which was a hybrid- his mother was
an ordinary domestic moggy, but his father was a Scottish feral cat. He
was affectionate with us, but ferocious with anything else. Aside from
the usual slaughter of birds and rodents, he would often chase and attack
dogs, and while I don't remember him ever taking a hare (! pretty
impressive, that), he did once bring in a live snake, which proceeded to
escape into the larder, causing incredible consternation in the household,
although it was a harmless grass snake as it turned out. In the end the
snake survived, but in somewhat shortened form.

Another memorable catch was a huge pheasant, although I suspect this
may have been stolen from someone's kitchen rather than freshly killed.
Even so, it was quite a feat to drag it back to the house- the thing was
about twice his size.

One of the oddest hunting cat-related things I've seen is when they catch
frogs. They don't kill them or try to eat them, not that I've seen anyway,
but in true sadistic feline fashion, they play with them for ages, tapping at
them to make them jump. The frog leaps away but then freezes, so the cat
simply wanders over and taps it again. This can entertain them for hours
if you don't intervene. The weirdest thing is the noise the frog makes- it
emits a high-pitched shriek, presumably a fear response, but totally
unlike any noise you'd imagine a frog making. When I first heard it, I
thought at first I was imagining it. Other cat-owners have observed the
same thing, so it wasn't just some bizarre population of mutant frogs in
our garden.

I can't think of any way to make this on-topic except to refer everyone to
the rather nice pussy pic (so to speak) on the cover of "Memos and
Demos". Now there's a cat who won't be much of a threat to local
wildlife..
--
Nick Medford