THE CAT, OUR FIRESIDE INMATE
When the sun has left the sky and night flings its dusky cloak over all things out-of-doors, then within the house we draw the curtain, light the lamp, and gather round the study table with books or games. And soon from her fireside nook steals up soft-footed puss, seeking a friendly lap in which she may nestle and purr the hours away.
From Trueblood's Cats by the Way
The Mother Cat and Her Playful Brood
This bundle of fur we call by the short name of cat was born in other climes and trained in other ways than the dog, and is as sly and sleek as the dog is rough and boisterous. It knows how to make itself at home and dearly loves a soft spot, but it has never quite got rid of its wild-life ways and is often as hard to make a friend of as the dog is easy. Rarely does it follow at man's heels in the dog's faithful fashion.
When did man first take the cat into his house and make it one of his pets? That is hard to say. If we go back to the early days of civilization we find the cat an inmate of man's house as well as the dog, and quite as much at home. It was kept in Egypt several thousand years ago and thought so much of in those far-off days as to leave the dog almost out of sight.
The people of that old land loved and worshiped the cat, made it into a mummy when it died, and any one who killed a cat was punished as if he had committed a great crime. That was the golden age of the cat, for one of the goddesses was said to have a cat's head, and the cat had a sacred city of its own, the city of Bubastis, where a festival in its honor was held every year and attended by more than half a million of people.
The people of Greece and Rome also thought much of the cat—perhaps because it helped them to get rid of the rat, which was as great a pest then as it is now. In later Europe also the cat was a favorite, and it was the custom at Aix, in Provence, to get the finest male cat that could be found, dress it like a baby, and seat it in a splendid arm-chair for the people to bow down to and worship.
The time came at length when the cat lost its good name and people began to look upon it as an imp of evil and the companion of the witch and the sorcerer. A black cat was the worst of all and its life was a hard one. In those evil days for the cat it became the fashion to fling cats from the tops of high towers, and at Metz, at the festival of St. John, cats were thrown by the dozen into a blazing fire and burned alive.
But better days have now come to pretty puss, and she is cared for as much as the dog, making the house her nest while the dog lives largely out-of-doors. It is chiefly at the late hours of the night that the cat goes abroad. I need not tell any of you what follows. You have all heard the music of a cat concert and felt as if you would like to treat those midnight howlers as the witch-cats were treated of old. Caterwauling we call it, and of all the noises of the night it is far the worst.
Where did the cat come from? That no one can tell exactly. There are wild cats in many parts of the world, we find them in Asia, in Europe, in Africa, in America, but none of them just like our household cat. The fact is that cats differ in different parts of the world and they may have come from several species. The Gloved Cat of Nubia comes nearest to the house cat in size and the shape of the head and tail, but in other ways is unlike it. So, on the whole, we are still in the dark about the origin of the cat.
One thing we do know, and this is that the cat has kept more of its wild ways than the dog. In its nightly rambles it is like the wild-cat of the woods. And even in the house it is a little too ready to show its claws. It will scratch where a dog would not think of biting. It is said that the cat loves places much more than it does people, and in moving from one house to another it is hard to get the cat away. It loves its old haunts more than its old friends.
The cat walks on its toes like the lion and tiger and all its other wild relations. But its claws do not touch the ground. They are drawn up into a sort of sheath and kept sharp for use as a soldier keeps his sword sharp in its scabbard. The paws being covered with fur, its step is silent and its movements are quiet and cautious, as many a mouse has found out.
The Canada Lynx, the House Cat's "Cousin"
We might not care so much for the cat if it were not of use to us in killing those pests of the house, the rat and the mouse. No matter how well fed she is, pussy dearly loves her mouse, and if on the track of one she is not to be turned aside. She will crouch for an hour at a time watching a mouse-hole, never moving a hair until the victim appears; then a single bound and all is over for the little creature. Even if the cat is asleep, no mouse can pass it with safety. Its ears and nose do not seem to sleep.
Once caught, the mouse is played with in a manner that seems cruel to us. The cat makes a game of letting its prey run away, but takes good care it does not reach its hole. This, no doubt, is one of its wild traits, handed down from its ancestors and never tamed out of it. We are told by one observer that a cat will catch and eat twenty mice in a day—this, of course, where mice are plentiful. But when a cat gets a taste for poultry or rabbits it is spoiled as a mouser. And though it is said that cats do not like to get wet, their fondness for fish is greater than their dread of water and they have been known to go fishing in a stream.
It is not easy to make a treaty of peace between the cat and the dog. Do they hate each other or are they jealous of their position in the house? The cat is not a match for the dog and makes haste to get away from the chasing cur, yet when driven into a corner it will put up a good fight for its life, and many a dog has been sent yelping away from its sharp claws. But this state of warfare does not always exist and it is not uncommon for cats and dogs to live together on friendly terms.
Lippincott's Primer
Ready for Business
If we go around the world we shall find cats everywhere and of many kinds. There are not nearly so many varieties of them as there are of dogs and they do not vary much in size like dogs, yet some breeds of cats differ greatly from others. Thus the cats from the Isle of Man—Manx cats they are called—have no tails, while their hind legs are very long and strong and they are covered with a thick coat of fur instead of hair. Let us compare this with the showy Angora cat, with its tail like a great white plume and its long white hair. And they differ as much in character, for the Manx is a hardy animal and the Angora is a delicate parlor cat, its health needing to be carefully looked after.
Then there are the Malay cat, with a tail only half the full length; the royal Siamese cat, fawn colored, with blue eyes and small head; the Carthusian, with long, dark, grayish-blue fur; the South African, with red stripes along its back; the Cyprus, striped and very tall, and the handsome Persian cat with its long silky hair.
As races are apt to be mixed, cat fanciers make color their chief point of value. The principal colors are white, black, blue, blue-gray, smoke-color, orange, and tortoise-shell. A true tortoise-shell tom-cat brings a big price. The color of the eyes is very important. Blue eyes are a sign of deafness. Some white cats have red eyes. As for the hair, cats are divided into two classes, the long-haired and the short-haired, the Persian and Angora being notable for the length of their hair. Most common among our cats is the soot-colored or gray, known as the "tabby," which has black stripes going round its legs, neck, and tail, and also down its sides. These show a return to the wild-cat in color, though tabby is as tame as her rivals.
The cat is not lacking in brain power nor in affection, for in many cases it shows warm love for its mistress. There are various anecdotes of cat logic, of which a few may be told. When crumbs have been thrown out to feed the birds a cat will often hide in the shrubbery, waiting for a chance to spring on them as they feed. One writer speaks of a case where the cat went farther in its logic. The crumbs thrown out had been covered by a light fall of snow, and the cat was seen scratching the snow away. Then she took up the crumbs, laid them on the snow, and hid behind the bushes to wait for the hungry birds.
A cat trick which shows good reasoning power has often been seen, that of opening latched doors, a thing which dogs very rarely do. Thus a cat will spring from the ground, catch the latch handle with one paw and with the other pull down the thumb-piece, at the same time scratching with its hind paws at the door post to open the door. The cat that does this must have seen men pull down the latch for the same purpose and reasoned out that it could do the same.
Also there are cases of cats learning to sound knockers and ring bells, with no one to teach them. Thus a Mr. Belshaw writes: "I was sitting in one of the rooms on my first evening there, and hearing a loud knock at the front door was told not to heed it, as it was only the kitten asking for entrance. Not believing this, I watched for myself, and very soon saw the kitten jump up to the door, hang on by one leg, and put the other forepaw right through the knocker and rap twice." Here the cat is not trying to open the door herself, but to bring some one to open it for her.
Dogs have been known to do the same thing, but not so often as cats, and there is a story of a dog which had seen the cat do this, and after that sought the cat when he wanted to get in, without trying to do the trick himself. One story is told of a cat's ringing a bell by pulling at an exposed wire.
Though the cat's display of thought is not as varied as the dog's, it is very good so far as it goes. Here is a story of a different kind. An oil lamp was being trimmed and some of the oil fell on the cat's back. Afterwards a cinder from the fire fell on it and set it in a blaze. The animal at once sprang for the open door and ran up the street with her back blazing for about a hundred yards. Here was the village watering trough, into which she plunged and put out the fire. The trough had eight or nine inches of water, and puss was in the habit of seeing the fire put out with water every night. In this case it is plain that the animal, as soon as the fire scorched her back, knew very well how to deal with the danger.
After all this, who will say that a cat does not think? Here is another story, told of her cat by a London lady:
"I once had a cat which always sat up to the dinner-table with me, and had his napkin round his neck and his plate and some fish. He used his paw, of course; but he was very particular and behaved with extraordinary decorum. When he had finished his fish I sometimes gave him a piece of mine. One day he was not to be found when the dinner-bell rang, so we began without him. Just as the plates were being put round for the entrée puss came rushing upstairs with two mice in his mouth. Before he could be stopped he dropped a mouse on to his own plate and then one on to mine. He divided his dinner with me as I divided mine with him."
The Hungry Babes and Playful Kitten
Such is the cat, a sedate, warmth-loving creature, dearly loving to be petted, yet far less dependent on man or woman than the dog. If left to itself in the woods, the cat knows well how to take care of itself where a dog would often be helpless. As for love of play, we do not find much of it in the cat but we find plenty in the kitten, which is a regular little rogue, lively, playful, frisky, brimful of fun and a cute little creature in all its ways.