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The number of domestic animals in Egypt is very great, and would be
still greater were it not for what befalls the cats. As the females,
when they have kittened, no longer seek the company of the males,
these last, to obtain once more their companionship, practise a
curious artifice. They seize the kittens, carry them off, and kill
them, but do not cat them afterwards. Upon this the females, being
deprived of their young, and longing to supply their place, seek the
males once more, since they are particularly fond of their offspring.
On every occasion of a fire in Egypt the strangest prodigy occurs with
the cats. The inhabitants allow the fire to rage as it pleases, while
they stand about at intervals and watch these animals, which, slipping
by the men or else leaping over them, rush headlong into the flames.
When this happens, the Egyptians are in deep affliction. If a cat
dies in a private house by a natural death, all the inmates of the
house shave their eyebrows; on the death of a dog they shave the head
and the whole of the body.
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