I have a photograph of "Richelieu," owned by Mr. Robinson, of Bangor, Maine, who had won first in his class at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia previous to 1884, when he was shown at Bangor, Maine, in a limited show of the one hundred best cats. He was a silver or bluish tabby, very lightly marked; about seven years old at the time; weight about twenty pounds; he was, as his picture shows, rather a coarse-grained variety; a drug store cat.

1 know nothing of his early history ; but his owner had the cat fad - a well-developed case - and travelled from city to city to show his cat, much as we are all doing now twenty years later.

At that time Maine, near the coast, was rich in fine specimens of the long-haired cats. That was before they began to sell. I have in mind their brown tabbies.

" Blue Danube." Bred By Mrs. E. R. Pierce

We often hear it said by people who know them not that the Maine cats are unhealthy, that they have worms ; and I have to admit it, and that they sometimes die like other cats ; but here is one that didn't until he had rounded out his full seventeen years.

On page 329 is a picture of "Leo," brown tabby, born 1884, died 1901; presented to Mrs. Persis Bodwell Martin, of Augusta, Maine, by Mrs. E. R. Pierce, when he was six months old.

He lived a life of luxury and ease, having his meals served by his mistress's own hand in the upper hall, where he chose to spend his time for the later years of his life.

If I may be permitted, I would ask comparison between the picture of "Leo" and any thoroughbred brown tabby - first, colour of muzzle, length of nose, size and shape of eyes, breadth of forehead, size of ears, length of hair in the ears, and on the head. In body markings "Leo" would fall off, as his hair was so extremely long that the markings became somewhat confused.

They have had some extremely fine brown tabbies in Maine. In the summer of 1900 I bought "Maxine" there - the mother of "Young Hamlet," who won over his sire "Prince Rupert" the first year he was shown. She was, or is, very much the type of the "King Humbert" stock, though she has no pedigree whatever.

It is one of Nature's own secrets how they keep bringing forth - now and then, not always - these fine types.

I have before me a most interesting letter from a Maine lady, one of my contemporaries.

I will first explain that Maine at that time was one of the largest ship-building States in the Union, residents of the seaport towns and cities being often masters of their own floating palaces, taking their families with them to foreign countries, and having in many towns quite social sets, like the army set or official set in other sections.

Mrs. Thomas, to whose letter I refer, was the daughter of the late Captain Stackpole, who commanded his own ship for many years, taking his wife and little daughter with him. That was before our Civil War. She says : "I was always very fond of cats before they had to have a pedigree. In my younger days, en route for California, we stopped at Juan Fernandez, and I got a little wild cat.

"Later on, when in Europe, I got a Manx cat from the Isle of Man ; it was a great curiosity, and not considered very handsome, with its bob-tail, and hind legs so much longer than the front ones. It came to an untimely end by running up a flue, and was smothered to death.

"The wild cat did not flourish on condensed milk, and lived but a short time. Bad luck has followed me right along, but I keep right on like an old toper, and don't know enough to stop."

In writing of her own cat, the mother of "Swampscott," she says : "I cannot tell you much about my cat's pedigree - only that her great-grandfather was brought to Rockport, Maine, from France; he was a blue-eyed white."

This line of whites, while in the same locality, are quite distinct and unrelated to the first whites mentioned, of which "Dot" was given as a type.

But her reference to her early exploits with Manx cats clears the air as to how these different varieties first got root in Maine. This instance is only one in many where pets of every variety were bought in foreign ports to amuse the children on shipboard ; otherwise, as in one case I can call to mind, the children would make pets of the live stock carried to supply the captain's table with fresh meals - chickens, lambs, etc. - until it would be impossible to eat the little dears after they were served by the cruel cook.

Therefore birds of plumage and singers, cats, dogs, and even monkeys, found their way to nearly all the coast towns - many more in the past than at this time, when sailing vessels have passed their usefulness as money-making institutions, and those that do go out are not commanded by their owners ; paid captains, as a rule, cannot take their families with them, and the supply of cats from that source has been cut off for many years, so those we find there now can safely be called natives.

Up to this point I have been writing of the cats of the long, long ago, and perhaps only interesting to myself, being as full of plain facts as Gradgrind.

Before coming down to some of the fine cats of the present day, I will say that I am told by an eye-witness that on a little island quite well off the coast which is inhabited by only three families, and where a few gentlemen have a quiet nook to fish in summer, they found pure white Persian cats with the most heavenly-blue eyes. So far as is known, no other cats are on the island. I had the promise of a pair last year, but cruel fate had visited them in their sheltered nook, and the kittens that year died. The promise still holds good, and I do not want to believe it a " fish story." Time alone can finish it.

I really know nothing of the cats that are said to be found on the islands ; but no doubt they are much the same as those found all along the New England coast.