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Cat-level biology

Sébastian's running kill count:

  • Rodents:
    Mice - 15
    Voles - 4

  • Birds:
    Sparrows - 3
    Dunnocks - 1

  • Other:
    Frogs - 1
    Unidentifiable remains - 1 2

I took O-level Biology although, in the classic words of Josephine Grant, "I didn't say I passed.". We got to do dissection, which I rather enjoyed. I think it was the combination of gore and drawing. As with most Biology dissection classes, there were always the girls who squealed and the boys who looked suddenly green when faced with a body part and a scalpel. My reaction to dissecting a bull's heart came several days later when I looked at my Sunday dinner and realised I would never be able to eat red meat again.

However, aside from setting me on the dark path to vegetarianism, I'm a little disappointed with my O-level biology because it turns out to be of useless when trying to identify the remains of small animals left on the carpet by cats. Those times when it is just an organ and maybe a little bit of entrails. It was probably a rodent of some kind, which the absence of feathers scatted about the place also suggests, but was it a vole, a mouse or a Rodent of Unusual Size? It's rare for Séba to actually eat his kill, so I'm going to buy some different food to mix in with his usual over the next few days to ensure I don't return to find unidentifiable body parts all over the place.

And how do they know? What bit of the cat brain understands which bits to avoid eating? And, ew, I just realised he must have eaten the bones as well. Crick, crack, crunch! like a giant. I'm living with an ogre. A small, grey, soft-furred ogre who sleeps on my bed and purrs.

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Posted @ 7:12 am on Saturday, July 01, 2006
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