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ts referred to by your correspondent SHIRLEY HIBBERD. In the pure breed there is not the slightest vestige of a tail, and in the case of any intermixture with the species possessing the usual caudal appendage, the tail of their offspring, like the witch's "sark," as recorded by honest Tam o' Shanter, "In longitude is sorely scanty." In fact, it terminates abruptly at the length of a few inches, as if amputated, having altogether a very ludicrous appearance. G. TAYLOR. Reading. The breed of cats without tails is well known in the Isle of Man, and accounted by the people of the island one of its chief curiosities. These cats are sought after by strangers: the natives call them "Rumpies," or "Rumpy Cats." Their hind legs are rather longer than those of cats with tails, and give them a somewhat rabbit-like aspect, which has given rise to the odd fancy that they are the descendants of a cross between a rabbit and cat. They are good mousers. When a perfectly tailless cat is crossed with an ordinary-tailed individual, the progeny exhibit all intermediate states between tail and no tail. EDWARD FORBES. _Warville_ (Vol. viii., p. 516.).-- "Jacque Pierre Brissot was born on the 14th Jan., 1754, in the village of Ouarville, near Chartres."--_Penny Cyclo._ If your correspondent is a French scholar, he will perceive that Warville is, as nearly as possible, the proper pronunciation of the name of this village, but that Brissot being merely the son of a prior pastrycook, had no right whatever to the name, which doubtless he bore merely as a distinction from some other Brissot. It may interest your American friend to know, that he married Felicite Dupont, a young lady of good family at Boulogne. A relation of my own, who was very intimate with her before her marriage, has often described her to me as being of a very modest, retiring, religious disposition, very clever with her pencil, and as having received a first-rate education from masters in Paris. These gifts, natural and acquired, made her a remarkable young person, amidst the crowd of frivolous idlers who at that time formed "good society," not only in Paris, but even in provincial towns, of which Boulogne was not the least gay. Perhaps he knows already that she quickly followed her husband to the scaffold. Her sister (I believe the only one) married a Parisian gentleman named Aublay, and died at a great age about ten years ago. N. J. A.
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