On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: #Besides the dogs mentioned in my previous post, I remembered #cats or kittens being mentioned somewhere. Fortunately, #there's the booksearch: # # # Jhereg, ch. 15 (referencing Aliera) # She relaxed against the back of her bed, absently # stroking a cat that I'd not been introduced to. Well done! And that reminds me of yet another argument for it. > Noish-pa's familiar, Ambrus, is a cat. < But we're talking about pets, not familiars! > But Ambrus is described as a *cat*, not a wildcat, a lynx, "a small dzurlike creature", or any other variation on a wild felid. If we can trust the translation at all -- and Brust isn't shy about using Dragaeran names for unEarthly animals -- Ambrus is a _felis domesticus_, the felid species that arose from domestication. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website