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PREFACE
in jail. Six years was long enough to plan ahead. But the work was interrupted by my transfer to a different jail. The cat, of course, was not transferred. It lived in jail, but it was not a prisoner. In the absence of its subject, the biography of the cat could no longer be continued. The reflections, being very largely imaginary, could be continued even then. But the incentive was not there. Moreover, the transfer to a different jail placed me in conditions more favourable for serious scientific work. Consequently, the "Memoirs of a Cat" remained incomplete as a piece of history of questionable value. But the observations made therein are self-contained, and, though done in a light vein, are meant to provoke thought. I hope that that purpose will be served by the publication of this small volume.
Dehradun, October, 1940.
1X
M. N. Roy.