Fun fact: in Herodotus' Histories (Book 2, Chapter 66), is the following:
"There are many household animals; and there would be many more, were it not for what happens among the cats. When the females have a litter, they are no longer receptive to the males; those that seek to have intercourse with them cannot; so their recourse is to steal and carry off and kill the kittens (but they do not eat what they have killed). The mothers, deprived of their young and desiring to have more, will then approach the males; for they are creatures that love offspring."
A surprisingly insightful description of adaptive infanticide, 2500 years ago.