Chapter IV (2)

“We can understand why the attitude assumed by a Cat when preparing to fight with another Cat, or in any way greatly irritated, is so widely different from that of a Dog approaching another with hostile intentions; for the Cat uses her fore-feet for striking, and this renders a crouching position convenient or necessary. She is also much more accustomed than a Dog to lie concealed and suddenly spring on her prey. No cause can be assigned with certainty for the tail being lashed or curled from side to side. This habit is common to many other animals, for instance, to the Puma, when prepared to spring; but it is not common to Dogs or to Foxes.”

Under ordinary circumstances, when neither attacking a foe nor caressing a friend, the Cat is the very image of lazy content. As she sits by the fire, softly purring, and occasionally licking her paws and rubbing them over her face, she seems an embodiment of repose, an incarnation of _otium cum dignitate_, a standing discourse on the advisability of

“Holding it ever the wisest thing
To drive dull care away.”

But notwithstanding its usual indolence, the Cat, like all its congeners, is capable of very violent action upon occasions. This is more especially the case with kittens, who are, perhaps, the most delightful of all young animals: the most elegant, the most active, the most restless, the most overboiling with life and spirits. Who has not watched a kitten play? No matter what its toy may be; it is content with anything movable--a ball, a piece of string, a lady’s dress, the fallen leaves in the garden--anything and everything she will play with, and as she plays, “grace is in all her steps,” every movement of her head, every pat of her velvet paw, every whisk of her little tail, is elegance itself. Even in the old Cat this wonderful power of executing the most rapid movements with almost the quickness of thought is rather in abeyance than actually absent; she can still run, leap to many times her own height, climb a tree or a vertical wall by means of her sharp claws, and perform other marvellous gymnastic feats impossible to anything else but a Squirrel or a Monkey.

The sense which of all others is most deficient in the Cat is that of smell. In this she differs most markedly from the Dog. It is said that a piece of meat may be placed in close proximity to a Cat, but that, if it is kept covered up, she will fail to distinguish it. This want is, however, partly compensated for by an extremely delicate sense of touch, which is possessed, to a remarkable extent, by the whiskers, or vibrissæ, as well as by the general surface of the skin. These bristles, as we have already mentioned in speaking of the Tiger, are possessed to a greater or less extent by all Cats, and are simply greatly developed hairs, having enormously swollen roots, covered with a layer of muscular fibres, with which delicate nerves are connected. By means of these latter, the slightest touch on the extremity of the whiskers is instantly transmitted to the brain. These organs are of the greatest possible value to the Cat in its nocturnal campaigns. When it is deprived of the guidance afforded by light it makes its way by the sense of touch, the fine whiskers touching against every object the Cat passes, and thus acting in precisely the same manner as a blind man’s stick, though with infinitely greater sensibility. Imagine a blind man with not one stick, but a couple of dozen, of exquisite fineness, and these not held in his hand, but embedded in his skin, so that his nerves come into direct contact with them instead of having a layer of skin between, and some notion may be formed of the way in which a Cat uses its whiskers.

But the Cat in its night walks has a further advantage over the blind man, namely, that except on the very darkest nights, it is not entirely deprived of the power of sight, for, as we have already mentioned, the pupil is so constructed that in the dark it can be dilated, so as to catch every available ray of light, and, moreover, the _tapetum_, or brilliant lining of the eyeball, reflects and magnifies the straggling beams, and so enables the Cat, if not actually to “see in the dark,” as is sometimes stated, at least to distinguish objects in an amount of light so small as to be inappreciable to our duller vision.

As we have already mentioned, the Domestic Cat is less strictly carnivorous than the wild _Felidæ_: still it prefers meat or milk to anything else, and is by no means a miscellaneous feeder, like the Dog. In the matter of diet, Gilbert White remarks[50]--“There is a propensity belonging to common house Cats that is very remarkable. I mean their violent fondness for fish, which appears to be their most favourite food; and yet Nature in this instance seems to have implanted in them an appetite that, unassisted, they know not how to gratify; for, of all quadrupeds, Cats are the least disposed towards water, and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to plunge in that element.” Mr. White does not seem to have known of the habits of the Jaguar.

A curious instance of the selection of their food by Cats and Dogs is given by the same author:--“As my neighbour was housing a rick, he observed that his Dogs devoured all the little red Mice that they could catch, but rejected the common Mice; and that his Cats ate the common Mice, refusing the red.”

This may be partly accounted for by the fact that the little Harvest Mouse has scarcely any trace of the odour which makes the domestic kind disagreeable, and which odour is not disliked, or perhaps is hardly perceived, by the Cat. Both Dogs and Cats, when the corn-ricks are being housed for threshing, will go on helping the farmer and his men for hours, killing Mice by hundreds and by thousands long after they have been satiated by eating them. These Mouse _battues_ illustrate the intelligence of the Cat as well as of the Dog, in a quick understanding of what relates to their own interest; for they know immediately what the removal of the thatch from the rick means, and, as it were, scent their prey before it is unearthed. Yet the food-treasures in these ricks are not unknown to the Cats, who night by night for months, perhaps, have caught and regaled themselves upon stragglers from the swarm.

But although of most domestic Cats it may be said,

“Rats and Mice, and such small deer,
Have been _Tom’s_ food for many a year,”

yet, in districts that have the game well “preserved,” this sort of diet is often exchanged for that of nobler prey, and the tame Cat will stray for months from the homesteads for young Rabbits, Leverets, and the Partridge covey. This poaching is almost sure to end in death, as these Cats are closely watched by the keepers.

One curious thing about these poaching habits is that they run in families. As Mr. Darwin says, one Cat “naturally takes to catching Rats, and another Mice, and these tendencies are known to be inherited. One Cat, according to Mr. St. John, always brought home game birds, another Hares or Rabbits, and another hunted on marshy ground, and almost nightly caught Woodcocks or Snipes.”

A Cat who has once taken to habits like these soon loses her taste for human society and a comfortable fireside, and becomes quite wild and almost as untamable as one of the actually feral species. Many years ago, in a village where we were then living, a female half-wild Cat made furtive visits to an old and extensive farmstead for the sake of the dove-cot Pigeons, and for the safer rearing of her young. These she would deposit, not in-doors, like our tame, pet Cats, but generally in the fagot-stack, and once in a corner of the thick house-thatch, in which was a labyrinth of passages made by the grey Rat. This Cat would form no friendship with us, but made almost demoniacal demonstrations of her combined hatred and fear. Her swearing and her spitting were accomplishments learned by her kittens as soon as they could see, and no care of ours could tame them.

One of the most remarkable things about the Cat is its habit of always burying its excrement, whether solid or liquid. A Cat living in the house is easily trained to leave the premises for this purpose, and will always be found to cover her droppings with earth; but even young, untrained Cats of dirty habits, who cannot be kept from occasionally defiling the house, will invariably try to hide their sin by scraping up cinders, &c., over it, or will, at any rate, make vigorous scratches at the carpet, in their endeavours to get up some of it for the same purpose. How a habit of this sort can have originated in an animal living in the woods, as do all the Cats when in a wild state, is a puzzle.

Like most of the Carnivora, the Cat is a tender and affectionate mother; the care with which she trains her young ones, her anxiety for their comfort, her industry in washing them, are too well known to require remark. So fond is she of her offspring that she will entirely alter her usual habits to regain lost ones. Mr. Hugh Miller, F.G.S., tells us of a Cat belonging to a clergyman in Northumberland, whose kittens were taken from her and given to a miller living at a distance of fully two miles, quite beyond the usual walk of a home-loving puss. The mother, however, although she had never been to the place before, and could by no possibility have known where her kittens were taken, made two successive journeys to the mill, each time bringing back in triumph to the rectory one of her dear ones.

So strong is the maternal instinct in the Cat that she will, if deprived of her own offspring, bestow her affections on animals of a totally different species, on creatures even, which, under ordinary circumstances, she would look upon as her natural and lawful prey. The following is a remarkable instance of this overpowering mother-love:--

“My friend had a little helpless Leveret brought to him, which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the same time his Cat had kittens, which were despatched and buried. The Hare was soon lost, and was supposed to be gone the way of most foundlings, to be killed by some Dog or Cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the master was sitting in his garden in the dusk of evening, he observed his Cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling, with little, short, inward notes of complacency, such as they use towards their kittens, and something gambolling after, which proved to be the Leveret that the Cat had supported with her milk, and continued to support with great affection.”[51]

Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a carnivorous and predaceous one! Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a Cat, of the ferocious genus _Felis_, the _Murium Leo_ (Lion of the Mice), as Linnæus calls it, should be affected with any tenderness towards an animal which is its natural prey, is not so easy to determine. This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance which grave historians, as well as the poets, assert of exposed children being sometimes nurtured by wild beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not one whit more marvellous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant state, should be nursed by a she-Wolf, than that a poor little suckling Leveret should be fostered and cherished by a Cat.

White, in his “Observations,” has another similar anecdote. “A boy has taken three little young Squirrels in their nest, or eyry, as it is called in these parts. These small creatures he put under the care of a Cat who had lately lost her kittens, and finds that she nurses and suckles them with the same assiduity and affection as if they were her own offspring. This circumstance corroborates my suspicion that the mention of exposed and deserted children being nurtured by female beasts of prey who had lost their young, may not be so improbable an incident as many have supposed; and, therefore, may be a justification of those authors who have gravely mentioned what some have deemed to be a wild and improbable story. So many people went to see the little Squirrels suckled by a Cat, that the foster-mother became jealous of her charge, and in pain for their safety, and therefore hid them over the ceiling, where one died. This circumstance showed her affection for these foundlings, and that she supposed the Squirrels to be her own young.”

Equally remarkable as an instance of the transference of maternal affection is the tale of the Cat whose kittens were replaced by two out of the five pups belonging to a Spaniel. The Cat brought up her foster children so well, that they were able to run about long before the three left under the charge of their own natural mother. Before long they were removed, and the Cat was inconsolable, until, one day, coming across the Spaniel and her pups, she concluded that the latter were her own lost darlings, and in her eagerness to get them engaged in two successive fights with the Spaniel, in each of which she was victorious, and after each of which she carried away a pup to her own premises, thus getting again, as she thought, her own two children, and the Spaniel being obliged to content herself with one.

This last anecdote is also remarkable because of the wonderful instinctive antipathy existing between Dogs and Cats, an antipathy which is one of the most curious instances of inherited instinct, for a young kitten, who has never seen a Dog in its life will, on being approached by one, put up its back, and swear and spit with all the force of feline Billingsgate. It is only after living in the same house with a Dog for some time that a Cat will become reconciled to him, but when she once gets to tolerate his presence, the two often become very good friends.

The most astonishing tale we have met with, with respect to their intelligence and sensibility, is one by Mr. C. H. Ross. He states that a Cat in his possession “would climb upon the top of the piano, and, sitting close underneath the picture” of a Bulldog, “fix its eyes upon the Dog’s face, and, putting back its ears, remain there, with a wild and terrified expression, for as long as an hour at a time,” and this, too, while there were two living Dogs in the house with whom she was on perfectly good terms. This is extraordinary enough, for it is usually stated that animals do not recognise pictures unless they are coloured, and the illustration in question was an engraving. But the queerest part of the story is yet to come. “During the time that he noticed this conduct on the Cat’s part, she was with kitten, and when the four kittens were born they were dead, and one of them, strange to say, had a Bull-dog-shaped head, marked almost exactly like the picture!”

Instances are not wanting in which Cats have formed friendships with birds--creatures which, as a rule, they look upon as their natural prey. One example of an affection of this sort is extremely curious. A Cat and a Canary had acquired a great fondness for one another. The Canary used to perch on the Cat’s back and play all sorts of pranks with it. One day their master saw, with horror, the feline Damon rush upon his passerine Pythias and seize it in his mouth. He naturally thought that at last nature had triumphed over grace, but on looking round saw that another Cat had entered the room, to whose tender mercies the bird-lover would by no means trust his little friend.

Like its natural enemy the Dog, the Cat is sometimes afflicted with _rabies_, or madness. Mr. Youatt, a great authority on the subject, says:--“Fortunately for us this does not often occur; for a mad Cat is a truly ferocious animal. I have seen two cases, one of them to my cost; yet I am unable to give any satisfactory account of the progress of the disease. The first stage seems to be one of sullenness, and which would probably last to death; but from that sullenness it is dangerous to rouse the animal. It probably would not, except in the paroxysm of rage, attack any one; but during that paroxysm it has no fear, nor has its ferocity any bounds.

“A Cat that had been the inhabitant of a nursery, and the playmate of the children, had all at once become sullen and ill-tempered. It had taken refuge in an upper room, and could not be coaxed from the corner in which it had crouched. It was nearly dark when I went. I saw the horrible glare of her eyes, but I could not see so much of her as I wished, and I said that I would call again in the morning. I found the patient on the following day precisely in the same situation and the same attitude, crouched up in a corner, and ready to spring. I was very much interested in the case; and as I wanted to study the countenance of this demon, for she looked like one, I was foolishly, inexcusably imprudent. I went on my hands and knees, and brought my face nearly on a level with hers, and gazed on those glaring eyes and that horrible countenance, until I seemed to feel the deathly influence of a spell stealing over me. I was not afraid, but every mental and bodily power was, in a manner, suspended. My countenance, perhaps, alarmed her, for she sprang on me, fastened herself on my face, and bit through both my lips. She then darted down-stairs, and, I believe, was never seen again. I always have nitrate of silver in my pocket; even now I am never without it. I washed myself and applied the caustic with some severity to the wound; and my medical adviser and valued friend, Mr. Millington, punished me still more after I got home. My object was attained, although at somewhat too much cost, for the expression of that brute’s countenance will never be forgotten.”

Except as fur-bearing animals, Cats are made no direct use of, save as Mouse and Rat-catchers. In this capacity they are quite invaluable, for these destructive little Rodents increase and multiply to such an extent, that if it was not for some such check as that afforded by the presence of a good mouser, many places would be as much overrun, and the inhabitants put to as much inconvenience, as were the people amongst whom Dick Whittington’s lot was cast. With regard to the number of these plagues of which a single Cat can rid the neighbourhood, it is stated by M. Lenz, as a well-ascertained fact, that a Cat of ordinary size is fully capable of catching and eating twenty Mice a day, or 7,300 a year! Besides Rats and Mice, they are fond of insects, such as Cockroaches; and in some countries, such as Paraguay, they are found to be of great value in killing Serpents, which, however, they are said never to eat, slaying them by repeated dexterous blows of the paw, simply for the sport.

The Domestic Cat is found wherever civilised man exists. It occurs throughout Europe and Asia, and has spread largely in America and Australia since the discovery of these continents by Europeans. The best-marked variety of the species is the beautiful Angora Cat, which is larger than the ordinary Cat, and covered with long fine hair, usually snow-white. The Manx Cat, native only in the Isle of Man, is distinguished by the very remarkable character of being tailless, or, at least, that appendage is quite rudimentary. In other respects, it does not differ from the ordinary varieties. The Persian Cat is a very fine variety often seen in English drawing-rooms; its hair is long, though nothing like so long as that of the Angora. It is a remarkably lazy beast, and far less interesting than the ordinary kind.

The Chinese Cat has also long silky fur and pendent ears, and is regularly fattened and eaten. Mr. Swinhoe gives a curious quotation about this animal from the _Hainan Gazetteer_. “‘_Lino_’ (or _Domestic Cat_) ‘cannot endure Fleas or Lice on its skin. Cats that have nine holes inside the mouth will catch Rats the four seasons through.’” What the Chinese _Gazetteer_ means by the _nine holes_ is difficult to imagine. Is it not a celestial piece of hyperbole for a Cat with a good large gullet?--just as we speak of their tenacity of life by saying that they have _nine lives_--thus our Cat has nine lives, and the Chinese Rat-catcher has _nine throats_.