Alexander Dyce, A General Glossary to Shakespeare's Works

cat “and shoot at me—Hang me in a bottle like a,” MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, i. 1. 222. It appears that formerly cats (occasionally factitious ones) were hung up in baskets and shot at with arrows; also that, in some counties of England, they were enclosed, with a quantity of soot, in wooden bottles suspended on a line, and that he who could beat out the bottom of the bottle as he ran under it, and yet escape its contents, was“the hero” of the sport. See Steevens's note ad. l. “It is still a diversion in Scotland to hang up a cat in a small cask or firkin, half filled with soot; and then a parcel of clowns on horseback try to beat out the ends of it, in order to show their dexterity in escaping before the contents fall upon them.” Percy's Rel. of A. E. Poetry, vol. i. p. 155, ed. 1794.