Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-09-14
WAYS OF CONNECTICUT CATS.
How Two Wise Mothers Guarded Their
Offspring-Great Cat Mortality.

How Two Wise Mothers Guarded Their
OTspring-Great Cat Mortality.
The Connecticut cat, says a Norwich
letter, is fertile in expedients. Ed
Parkhurst's cat, at Norwich Town, find
ing that she could not live peaceably with
dogs, boys and other cats, took her kit
tens in her teeth, one at a time, scratched
her way up the bark of big elm in the
front yard, and slowed them in hole in
the tree, eighteen feet from the ground,
that was two feet deep, with an opening
Just large enough for her to crawl through.
There she enjoyed life with her family.
When she was off calling at night she
knew that the kittens were safe. She
was in the hole from early in August
until heavy rain storm came on few
days ago and the tree leaked. In the
height of the storm she craWled out with
a kitten in her mouth and transferred it
to the house cellar. With great difficulty
she carried all the kittens to the cellar.
John G.. Cooley's cat, at North Frank
lin, disliked the confinement incurred in
watching four kittens all day, and she
placed them under motherly hen, which
was trying to hatch proclaim egg in
nest, two feet away, on the same haymow.
The hen clucked, lifted her wings, and
welcomed the litter. The cat went off to
while away the day, returned at might, and
took back her offspring. Each morning
thereafter the kittens were put of on the
hen. the cat strOlled away, and the hen
entertained them by clucking to them
until the cat came back at night. They
answered to both the clucking Of the hen
and the specific maternal call. The hen
sat on the kittens for about two weeks,
and then they ran away, leaving her dis
nn There 4ffRR-
tions that a proclaim egg was incompe-
tent to fill. After brooding on her nest
for two days she gave up the attempt to
hatch the egg, and began to lay eggs
again. Mr.. Cooley believes that litter
of kittens is the only thing, except death,
that will ''break up'' setting hen.
Last winter an extraordinary distem-
per appeared among the cats of Eastern
Connecticut that set them sneeZing and
kept them at it until their vitality was
exhausted and they died. They moped
about the roads with swelled heads,
sneezing continually, and when their
anxious mistresses approached scoWled
wickedly at them. Many valuable cats,
some of them worth so to their owners,
persisted in the towns and villages of
Winnham and New London counties. In
some cases the sick cats were chased
down and subjected to medical treatment,
and il was discovered that the patient
died at an earlier stage Of the complaint
than if permitted to die unaided. This
tall new and still more deadly distem-
per is approaching from Danbury, in the
western part Of the State. 1t has al
ready reached the Connecticut river val
ley, and owners of favorite cats in the
Thames, Shetucket, and Quinnebaug
river valleys are in flutter of expecta-
ton and dread. The disease works very
rapidly. 1t comes on without any pre-
monitory symptoms, the hair comes of,
and the cat swells to such a size that he
cannot climb or utter sound, and, after
a day or two, he dies Of melancholy and
disappointment. Physicians are unable
to successfully diagnose the disease,
which does not yield to the old school
practice or to catnip.