one view on how the cat came to be

From an article titled "Cats," by Tighe Hopkins in The Leisure Hour, vol 44 (1895) p. 109:

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In the legends of cats, place must be given to that surprising account of the cat's creation which is found in the works of an Arabian naturalist:
"When, as the Arabs relate, Noah made a couple of each kind of animal enter the ark, his companions, as well as the members of his own family, said to him, 'What security can there be for us and for the animals so long as the lion shall dwell with us in this narrow vessel?'
The patriarch betook himself to prayer, and entreated the Lord God. Immediately fever came down from Heaven, and seized upon the king of the beasts, so that tranquillity of mind was restored to the inhabitants of the ark. There is no other explanation of the origin of fever in this world. But there was in the vessel an enemy no less harmful ; this was the mouse. The companions of Noah called his attention to the fact that it would be impossible for them to preserve their provisions and their clothes intact. After the patriarch had addressed renewed supplications to the Most High, the lion sneezed, and a cat ran out of his nostrils. From that time forth the mouse became so timid that it contracted the habit of hiding itself in holes."

By the mythologists it was fabled that Diana created the cat in order to throw ridicule on the lion, "an animal created by Apollo with the intention of frightening his sister."
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