Cat

CAT

(ailouros):

The only mention of this animal is in Baruch 6:22. It is not mentioned in the canonical Scriptures, though Bochart (Hieroz., 862) gives "wild cats" as the equivalent of tsyim in Isaiah 13:21; 34:14; Jeremiah 50:39; Psalms 74:19, where English Versions of the Bible gives "wild beasts of the desert." Mention is, however, made of cats, cathod, in the Welsh Bible (Isaiah 34:14). The only mention of the catta in classical Latin writers is in Martial xiii.69. How the cat was regarded in Egypt is described in Herod. ii.66 and Rawlinson's notes. In Baruch 6:22 cats are mentioned with "bats, swallows and birds" as sitting with impunity on the images of the heathen gods which are unable to drive them off.

See also \ZOOLOGY\.

J. Hutchison