feline 復習
野良猫がたくさん住んでいる島が観光客を獲得しようとしています。しかし、住民の落ち着いた暮らしが阻まれているようです。
FUKUOKA – With two islands populated by large numbers of stray cats, Japan has a new tourist craze: sea cruises to visit the felines.
Ainoshima, also known as Cat Heaven Island, is a 20-minute ferry ride from Shingu port near the city of Fukuoka.
It has seen a startling change of late as groups of women, foreign tourists and other feline-fanciers visit the fishing village to see the cats.
But although island welcomes the economic boost, there have been complaints about visitors’ behavior: They ignore signs telling them not to feed the cats, they drop litter — and they block the toilets.
About 100 cats live on the island, which is a little less than 6 km around and has a population of roughly 280 people.
It was only about a year ago that the tourist boom began here. In the past, locals say, only anglers would visit.
The town office, which had done nothing to promote the cats on the island, could not figure out why so many people were arriving until it became apparent that Ainoshima, along with Tashiro Island in Miyagi Prefecture, had been featured in the news.
TV network CNN named Ainoshima and Tashiro islands as one of “six places where cats outshine tourist attractions” in 2013, and the Japan Times published an article about Ainoshima in 2014 titled “The feral felines of Cat Heaven Island.”
以下省略
今回取り上げる表現はfelineです。『ライトハウス英和辞典』（第5版 研究社）で調べてみますと、「（形容詞で）1猫科の 2（外観・動作などが）猫のような、しなやかな （名詞で）ねこ科の動物」という意味があることがわかりました。
猫繋がりで、猫のいくつかある言い方も気になったので調べてみました。kittenは「子猫」、kittyは「（主に小児語）猫、にゃあにゃ」という意味であることが確認できました。
ここまでくると、犬（わんわん）も調べたくなりましたので、dogをひいてみると、関連語でcanine, K9，さらにdoggy またはdoggieが見つかり、「（小児語）わんわん」であることが分かりました。（aqua）
