Then the rest of the tray forms a glorious playground for the first week or two, when one adventurous mite finds out he can climb up the shallow sides, and tumble out on a large strange world of floor and trot after mamma. A well-known fancier tells me she has not had one litter with weak or bad eyes since she adopted the straw truss plan.

The Ideal Cattery

One of these trays might be placed each side of the wooden partition, and if necessary to shut a nervous or surly cat up with her family, one might be enclosed in a wire frontage with door, as the sleeping-pens were arranged. Let there be a good large window in this room, as the kittens, when running about, will want all the sunshine and air possible. This run should be of asphalt, for dryness and warmth, with plenty of play places arranged in it. An old barrel with the bottom knocked out affords great games, also the tree I have before spoken of; a tree-stump or two, or a heap of dry brushwood stacked in a corner, will supply those climbing and hiding holes kittens so greatly enjoy, and afford protection from winds.

A grass run and a gravelled one are designed in the plan, each having access to the other, and will allow the cats ample exercising ground according to weather. An oval flower-bed in the centre of the grass plot, planted with some evergreen bushes, is a good idea. It affords shelter, and the cats can dig in the dry earth. For the benches in the gravel run, an old outhouse door, painted and mounted on stout legs, makes a very good one, which the cats love to sit upon.

The stud houses are simple: a wired-in space of 12 feet by 11 feet contains a house with lean-to roof 4 feet by 8 feet long, fitted with sleeping bench and box, wired windows, door for attendant, and small trapdoor for cat. En passant, all doors should be fitted with good locks, and locked up after feeding at night is done. The stud run is gravelled, but a border of grass might be left on two sides - grass is such a necessity for cats in confinement, and they prefer to select it growing for themselves. The design here suggested is capable of either modification or extension. The plan can be enlarged to any extent. For instance, if desired, an attendant's cottage could be built at one end instead of the stud house, and comprise a special kitchen, and also an upper room, fitted with convenient pens for a hospital for the sick members - a very necessary adjunct to the cattery, as a sick cat should be at once removed from its healthy companions and kept in a place quite apart. More stud houses could be arranged at an angle on one side of the chief runs, or, if only a very few cats are intended to be kept, one of the divisions could be dispensed with, perhaps, and the dimensions of the other two made smaller.

But whatever your ambitions may be, great or small, when you are about it have the work well done.

The heating of catteries is a rather vexed question, many famous breeders affirming that stock raised without it are healthier and harder; others maintaining that a certain amount of heat is a necessity for producing a good coat. A very experienced breeder once told me the heaviest-coated kittens she ever bred were reared over some hot-water pipes, in a temperature of 700! With adult cats having partial freedom and allowed to come into the house in severe weather, and with stud cats, I consider the no-heat plan decidedly the best; but I do not think it possible to rear young stock during the colder part of the year in an outdoor cattery without artificial heat. It is the damp of the English winter which proves so fatal, and damp cannot be kept out of the very best constructed houses except by the admission of dry heat.

Kittens that are cold will not play, and if you see them huddled together on a cold day looking listless and uneasy, instead of romping, be sure it is fire heat they need.

A thermometer should hang in each house, and the heat be carefully regulated by that, a minimum of 480 and a maximum of 550 being suggested. In houses where a flue is practicable, a stove of the Tortoise pattern is to be recommended, but it needs a high guard around it. For a long range of brick-built houses, an outside flue and boiler, with hot-water pipes running the length of the cattery, would be found of most service, as it maintains an even and medium warmth throughout, keeps the building perfectly dry, and can be stoked with less trouble. In small wooden houses, very excellent results are given by the use of an oil stove with hot-water apparatus, such as a re supplied for small greenhouses. The lamp will usually burn twenty-four hours without attention, is un-get-at-able by the cats, who can neither singe their tails nor knock it over during the wildest gambols, and if kept clean and looked to with care will not cause the slightest odour. A quart of paraffin in one of these oil stoves will burn twenty - four hours, and heat a building 12 feet by 10 feet to 50°. Now, in concluding this little discourse upon catteries, the final word of advice is always to remember the importance of absolute cleanliness.

There should never be the least offensive smell in the cattery, and if such be noticed on entering the houses in the morning, discover the cause and remedy it at once. And do not rely solely upon disinfectants to do this. Too frequently this is but overcoming a bad smell by a stronger, the evil remaining. A good and non-injurious disinfectant should always be used in the water for the daily cleansing of pans and floors, etc. Camphaleyne or Salubrene are both safe and effective, but disinfectants that contain creosote in any quantity, or carbolic, I do not approve of, except in cases of illness of an infectious type, when stronger measures are obligatory.

No dirty food dishes, no unchanged water, no soil of any kind, should ever be left about on flooring or bedding. Let your cattery be kept as scrupulously clean and sweet as a hospital, then will your cats thrive and kittens be healthy and sturdy.

Do not elect to start a cattery unless you yourself intend to bestow both time and trouble upon it. In this, as in every other occupation or hobby, the one golden rule is, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might."