length, deserves notice from the manner in which the
female carries her eggs attached to the belly and paired fins, in a
single layer, each egg being connected with the skin by a cup-shaped
pedunculate base supplied with blood-vessels and coated with a layer of
epithelium, the formation of which is still unexplained. (G. A. B.)

CATGUT, the name applied to cord of great toughness and tenacity
prepared from the intestines of sheep, or occasionally from those of the
horse, mule and ass. Those of the cat are not employed, and therefore it
is supposed that the word is properly _kitgut, kit_ meaning "fiddle,"
and that the present form has arisen through confusion with _kit_ = cat.
The substance is used for the strings of harps and violins, as well as
other stringed musical instruments, for hanging the weights of clocks,
for bow-strings, and for suturing wounds in surgery. To prepare it the
intestines are cleaned, freed from fat, and steeped for some time in
water, after which their external membrane is scraped off with a blunt
knife. They are then steeped for some time in an alkaline ley, smoothed
and equalized by drawing out, subjected to the antiseptic action of the
fumes of burning sulphur, if necessary dyed, sorted into sizes, and
twisted together into cords of various numbers of strands according to
their uses. The best strings for musical instruments are imported from
Italy ("Roman strings"); and it is found that lean and ill-fed animals
yield the toughest gut.

CATHA, the _khat_ of the Arabs, a shrub widely distributed and much
cultivated in Arabia and tropical Africa from, Abyssinia to the Cape.
The dried leaves are used for the preparation of a kind of tea and also
as tobacco. The plant is a member of the natural order _Celastraceae_, a
family of shrubs and trees found in temperate and tropical climates and
represented in Britain by the spindle-tree (_Euonymus europaeus_).

CATHARS (CATHARI or CATHARISTS), a widespread heretical sect of the
middle ages. They were the debris of an early Christianity, scattered in
the 10th to 14th centuries over East and West, having their analogues in
the Mahommedan world as well. In the East they were called Bogomils
(q.v.) and Paulicians; in the West, Patarenes, Tixerands (i.e. Weavers),
Bulgars, Concorricii, Albanenses, Albigeois, &c.; in both, Cathars and
Manicheans. This article relates to the Western Cathars, as they appear
(1) in the Cathar Ritual writt