In 1810, a lady took a cat from a friend’s house in Edinburgh to Glasgow. She dutifully kept the cat indoors for two months, during which time her new pet had two kittens; but as soon as vigilance was relaxed, cat and kittens vanished, only to turn up in Edinburgh a fortnight later with the mother looking decidedly road-weary.

As she could scruff only one kitten at a time, the desperate mother must have had to make three trips, covering 120 gruelling miles in all, and probably by night. On arriving home she carried her kittens in one-by-one, and then placidly resumed her familiar place by the hearth, just as if she had never been away.

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