re extensively
than almost any other cat.

An even more wonderful short-haired cat was "Mittens," who has actually
been trained to love and live with birds. "Mittens" is a great deal of a
swell. His grandfather was a pure-blooded Maltese, and his
great-grandmamma was a very haughty Angora. All the traditions in his
family prompted him to consider birds as his natural prey and dogs as
his enemies. When he came to his present mistress, Mrs. M. L. Ponchez,
the latter had two Yorkshire terriers, a parrot, eight canaries, a
red-bird, and several chameleons, and of course she thought it would be
pretty difficult for "Mittens" to live in peace with all these other
pets. She thought she would try to teach him to be friendly to the birds
and dogs, and this is what she did.

She first kept all of her pets a day without food, and then the next day
placed the cat between the dogs while she fed him his breakfast. After
that the cat and the dogs became such good friends that they all slept
together. At the next meal she took one of the canaries, put him on her
finger, and petted him while she held "Mittens" in her lap and fed him.
This she did several times, and then let all of the birds fly around the
cat. The latter never attempted to touch one, and frequently to-day you
may see "Mittens" slumbering peacefully before the fire, with a canary
nestled on the soft fur of his back.

[Illustration: IN THE LONG-HAIRED CAT-ROOM.]

While there were many more short-haired cats on exhibition for prizes,
the long-haired ones created more attention because they are much less
common. They had a separate room to themselves upstairs, and a band of
music played for them lest they should forget that many of them were
descended from cat emperors and princes in the far-off East. There was
"Ajax," a white Angora, with firm mouth and keen eyes, his fluffy white
mane looking like a lion's, every inch of him a king. There was
"Paderewski," blue-ribboned, with longer and thicker hair than the
famous musician whose name he bears. Near by an interested crowd watched
"Ellen Terry" and her seven kittens. "Ellen" is a large white and orange
Angora, and very cozy were she and her kittens in a basket lined with
yellow silk and trimmed with dotted muslin. Her manners were perfect,
for whenever her cunning little kittens were caressed she showed no
surprise, but looked on with calm maternal pride.

Just to show by contrast how very aristocratic these long-hair