The unusual behaviour of a cat near Warminster

The unusual behaviour of a pet cat near Warminster is puzzling its owners.  Morse, an exotic Egyptian cat, is causing chaos to the décor in a Heytesbury pub with his strange new habit of decapitating tulips.   

“We’ve no idea why he is dong it,” says Alison Perring, licensee of  The Angel Inn at Heytesbury.  “He just wants to take the heads off – once they are lying around the vase and only the stalks remain he loses interest. It’s not as if he wants to eat them – or he is starving – we feed him plenty of Whiskas!"   

The cat, who has been given a number of names, is officially named Morse " ...because his markings are a mixture of dots and dashes,” says Alison. "He is also known as Kit Kit and Mittens as he has unusual black pads on his paws."  

Morse, who  is only 7 months old, was born in Bournemouth and arrived in Heytesbury  in September.  All was going well until two weeks ago when a bunch of yellow tulips was placed in a vase on a window sill.  

It did not take Morse long to find them and to everybody’s astonishment he started biting off the heads.  

“We’ve no idea why he is doing this – it is a real nuisance but we have decided it is better not to have any tulips around – though he has been seen nibbling the roses! says Alison. 

Morse is a pedigree Egyptian Mau cat.  Mau is the Egyptian word for cat and in ancient Egypt the animals were revered because of their ability to protect stored crops from attack by vermin.  Cats attained a godlike status and many have been found mummified. No historical evidence has yet been found of any flower beheading habits.