Here's a story that happened a couple of years ago at our summer cottage.

It was a bad vole year, and Nikki was completely frustrated because she had nothing to hunt. She skipped out hopefully each evening, but came home in the night, waking me up with her grumbling and cussing because she hadn't found anything.

Then one night I woke up from her scrunching away on the floor. I thought happily to myself, oh, finally she's got some prey! She crunched and crunched, I started to wonder what in the world she could be eating, it must be huge. In the morning I looked to see if there was anything left, and there was. At least half of the water rat was still uneaten!

The next night she brought another one. This time I knew, when she was crunching away, what it was she was eating. In the morning I found about half a water rat again.

So when she came in the next night, making that special sound she makes when she has prey, I thought, another water rat. But this time she was exhausted. When she had dragged her prey inside, she slumped down on the floor and just lay panting for a while. Then the crunching started. I mildly wondered why she had been so exhausted, before I drifted off to sleep again.

The next morning I thought, another water rat to throw out today. Started looking for it. Something furry was sticking out from under the other bed. When I saw what it was, my hair stood on end. I could hardly believe my eyes. Lying there on the floor was a baby rabbit without a face.

Nikki is a very small cat. She looks like a kitten in spite of her 12 years. She had caught a baby rabbit that was nearly her own size. No wonder she was exhausted! Who knows how far she had dragged it? Of all the icky things she has brought home, this was by far the ickiest. Especially since she had eaten just *its face*.

Copyright © Marina Kurten
December 19, 2000