The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-05-27
ON GRIMALKIN ISLAND.
tn OUsANDs OF FELINEs ON A
LONELY ROCK.

Where Puss in Boots Might Reign-An
Uncanny Cat Colony Off the Coast of
San Buena Ventura-aorrible Le-
gends Told by Fishermen.
From the San Francisco Examiner.
Santa Barbara Island, of the coast OF
Ventura county, is a rocky peak which
rises many feet above the sea, without verd-
ure and watered only by such lakelets as
gather in recesses of the cliffs during rain
storms. 1t is uninhabitable and undesir-
able in every way, since it affords no shelter
to vessels nor anything that might be of
value to their crews. Fishermen touch In
passing, but they are the only men who
ever bring news from the bleak sentinel
rock. The island is about three-eighths of
a square mile In area and stands frowning
menace to navigators who go down into
that part OF the seq In ships. Its position,
seventy-fve miles from the coast line,
would make it suitable as a summering
place if any attractions were there, but its
only inhabitants are cats. Where the cats
came from, or why they have thrived upon
the desolate rock, are unanswerable queries.
They are there in numbers and increasing.
No one believes that evolution has pro-
duced them from starfish or that they we're
generated spontaneously. Even the bud
ding scientists among the fishermen of Ven
tura admit that the present stock Of cats on
the island must have had ancestors in kind.
The only tenable theory, and that one which
finds general acceptance is that the toms
aud tabby cats from some fishing smack
which touched at Santa Barbara Island
must have gone ashore and been left when
the smack sailed away. Common sailors
end fishermen the world over have, in
fancy, peopled unknown shores with all
sorts Of strange monsters and distorted men,
and Santa Barbara Island, in common with
other rarely visited spots, has been wreethed
about with garlauds of sea-dog fancy until
the superstitious have come to look at it as
an uncauny place. Sailors tell of horrible
phantoms that sail through the air from
pinnacle to pinnacle of the rocks, singing
as they fly, and of others that gather near
the waters edge and eutice the mariner by
lascivious genuheotlons and soft murnur-
ings like those of the sirens who wait every
where for Jack ashore. But it is all cats
The cats do the singing, and If there is
any murmuring the cats purr that into the
eagerly receptive sailor ears. Fish are IN
plenty about the island, but some of the
fishermen have faDcled that certain whitish
objects TO be seen when near the beach on
the southern side are human skulls, and
other objects are thought to be the bones
Of human castaways, who may. perchance,
have, after death, been gnawed by the cats,
When all the foolishness Of the fishermen
is put aside there yet remains the curious
fact that the island is thickly infested by
cats of all colors They manage to live by
eating such fish as may be washed upon the
beaches or among the rocks and find the
young and eggs OF seabirds at certain SEA-
sons. An occasional feast Of flesh is car
ried to them, in the carcass of porpoise
killed from some passing vessel, or III the
carrion refuse from adjacent whaling sta
tions, drifted to the island by tidal currents.
A precarious existence it is at best, and the
wonder is small that the cats are gaunt and
eager. They troop about their island, and
someti mes indulge in general engagements,
after which the survivors deVour the killed
and wound ed.
Six years ago two fishermen OF Ventura
were lost at sea, A year later another
fisherman, FaZzie by name, Yves carried by
adverse winds near Santa Barbara Island,
and when he at last escaped being wrecked
and returned to his home he told a CHASTITY
tale of snowy skulls on the island beach and
wreckage from q fishing sloop among the
rocks He tancied the skulls must be those
Of his missing friends. He told of angry,
soreeching cats that gathered on the rocks
and apparently waited for his body to be
cast ashore, and his story soon became le~
gend Of the island.
Shooting parties have gone to the island
and wasted ammunition in practice upon
the bowling beasts, but without diminishtn
the number materially.
The lonely island is still in possession OF
the pussies, and passing sailors piously cross
themselves as they hear awful voices coming
up through the night, out Of the depths ap-
parently.