As regards their own prey, they waged perpetual warfare against the native rats.

The skin of these cats was beautifully soft, and altogether they were quite leopards in miniature.

Best of all, they made excellent eating, the more so in that their flesh was almost the only meat dish that had not the eternal flavour of the eucalyptus leaf, which all our other "joints" possessed.

The girls never knew that they were eating cats, to say nothing about rats.

In order to save their feelings, I told them that both "dishes" were squirrels! My hair at this time was even longer than the girls' own, so it is no wonder that it provided bows for the fiddles.