Don Little, age 12, of Asheville, North Carolina, for his question:

Were tabby cats here before the Pilgrims?

Imagine a whole continent without a house cat to investigate the premises for mice, without one contented tabby to purr by the fire. Before the Pilgrims arrived, this sad state of affairs existed all over America. True, there were bobcats, lynxes and other suitably sized cats living in the wilds. And wild they were. None of them had any intention of adopting the human family and settling down to a domesticated life. Obviously the Pilgrims knew nothing about this, for so far as we know they did not bring any tame cats with them.

Naturally this information got around and various people set about solving the problem. We do not know exactly who they were, but certain traders began bringing domesticated cats from Europe to America in the 1700s. Other were brought by later colonists. For a time, the price of one of these cats was sky high. But being cats, they soon made themselves at home with their human families and started multiplying. Now the problem is finding trustworthy homes to place all their kittens.