all the ideas of natural history which she had been able to collect during her excursions on the roofs or in the courtyard and garden. The shadows of her thoughts flitted across her changeful eyes, and it was not difficult to read the decision at which she finally arrived: "This is—decidedly it is—a green chicken!"
This conclusion reached, the cat jumped from the table which she had chosen as her observatory, and crouched in a corner of the room, her belly on the floor, her knees bent, her head lowered, her spine stiffened like that of the black panther in Gérome's picture as it glares at the gazelles who are drinking by the lake.
The parrot followed each movement of the cat with a feverish disquietude. His feathers bristled; he rattled his chain, raised one of his claws and exercised its talons, while he whetted his beak on the edge of the feeding cup. Instinct revealed
