THE CAT—ANCIENT AND MODERN.
Cruel and treacherous, a lover of the night and darkness, the cat, with its distrustful gaze and marked attachment to localities, was very naturally the animal selected, in the middle ages of superstition and witchcraft, to represent the familiar companion, in which was embodied the evil spirit supposed to attend all those who practised the black art in former times. Long before this time, however, as some people are probably aware, the cat was one of the most highly favoured animals living; petted, pampered, carefully protected, and actually worshipped by the then most civilised people in the world, the ancient Egyptians. How this reverence came to be paid to the cat in particular by this extraordinary people it is quite impossible to determine; but by some it is supposed to have originated from the benefits conferred on mankind by its destruction of vermin and reptiles; at anyrate, if the Egyptian cats were as useful as they are represented to have been, the care taken of them is easily accounted for. Though it seems somewhat difficult to understand how the sportsmen of the Nile trained their cats not only to hunt game but to retrieve it from the water, the hunting scenes depicted on walls at Thebes and on a stone now in the British Museum, afford proof of the Egyptian cat’s services in this respect. In one of these representations Puss is depicted in the act of seizing a bird that has been brought down by the marksman in the boat; while in the other scene, as the sport has not begun, the cats are seen in the boat ready for their work. Thus it appears from these ancient illustrations of field and other sports, that the Egyptians were able to train their domestic cats to act in the same way as our modern retriever dogs do.
It is generally supposed that nothing will induce a cat to enter water; but this is clearly a fallacy, like many other popular notions about the animal world. The tiger is an excellent swimmer, as many have found to their cost; and so the cat, another member of the tiger family, can swim equally well if it has any occasion to exert its powers, either in quest of prey, or to effect its escape from some enemy. As cats are exceedingly fond of fish, they will often drag them alive out of their native element whenever they get the chance. They have even been known to help themselves out of aquaria that have been left uncovered; and on moonlight nights they may be seen watching for the unwary occupants of a fish-pond, during the spawning season especially. Again, a cat will take the water in the pursuit of a rat, a fact that was proved by a friend of ours a few years ago. On one occasion being accompanied by one of his pets, a rat was started, which the cat not only pursued, but chased into the water close by, eventually swimming to an island some little distance from the bank, where it remained a short time and then swam back again.
Diana or Pasht, as that goddess was called in Egypt, was the tutelary deity of cats. Various reasons are assigned for this curious selection of the cat as the animal worthy of being dedicated to the moon. We find that according to Plutarch, the cat was not only sacred to the moon, but an emblem of it; and that a figure of a cat was fixed on a sistrum to denote the moon, just as a figure of a frog on a ring denoted a man in embryo. And further, it was supposed that the pupils of a cat’s eyes always dilated as the moon got towards the full, and then decreased as the moon waned again. This has been given by some as the reason why cats were held sacred to the goddess Diana.
As before stated, the Egyptians treated these animals with unusual care and attention during their lifetime; hence it is not surprising to find that the death of a cat was regarded as a family misfortune, in consequence of which the household went into mourning. Their regret for the defunct cat was displayed then by the curious custom of shaving off the eyebrows before attending the funeral, which they invariably conducted with great pomp. Previous to interment, the bodies of these pets were embalmed, and then, when it was possible, conveyed to the city of Bubastis, where they were placed in the temples sacred to Pasht.
The wilful destruction of a cat in Egypt is looked upon as a very serious offence even now; but in the good old days (for cats) at Bubastis the offence, even supposing it to have been accidental, was punished with prompt severity. The unfortunate offender, as in the case of a Roman soldier whose story is told by Diodorus, was taken prisoner, tried, condemned, and sentenced—to death. Puss had fine times of it in those early years of superstition and animal worship; but unfortunately for her, other people formed very different notions concerning her character and occupations generally; for in the middle ages cats got the reputation of being the only animals that ill-famed old women could induce to live in their houses; consequently they naturally became associated with witchcraft and all that was diabolical and uncanny by the credulous people of those times. In the Isle of Thanet a carving still exists on one of the misereres of the church which represents an ugly old woman sitting in a chair and holding a distaff in her hand, while two cats sit close to her, one of them indeed in the chair itself, looking as if it wished to spring on to her shoulder. It seems, however, that old women did not monopolise the cats even in those days, for it is known that in the thirteenth century one of the rules of the English convents was, that the nuns should keep no other ‘beast’ but a cat; hence we may infer that cats were looked upon more favourably by the religious orders than by the people generally.
The cat has been connected with many curious superstitions in various parts of the world. In some localities, for instance, it is believed that witches in the shape of cats are in the habit of roaming about the roofs of the houses during the month of February; hence they are promptly shot. In Germany also a similar notion prevails respecting black cats; in consequence of which they are never allowed to go near the cradles of young children; though it is not easy to understand why the young should be more exposed to danger from these supposititious witches than those more advanced in years. But numerous instances might be given of the incredible nonsense that has been believed, and is believed still in some places about the diabolical attributes of the cat, especially a black one. In Sicily, where the cat is looked upon as sacred to St Martha, there is a superstition that any one who wilfully or accidentally kills a cat will be punished by the serious retribution of seven years’ unhappiness. So if any credit is attached to this, the life of Puss in Sicily must be as secure from harm as in the palmy days of Egyptian cat-worship. In Hungary there is a curious superstition that before a cat can become a good mouser it must be stolen. The familiar nursery story of Whittington and his Cat, as well as the favourite children’s fable of Puss in Boots, can be traced some hundreds of years back.
It is perhaps an unfortunate thing that the habits of cats are not more carefully observed, as it is by no means certain that their peculiarities are fully understood. By some their intelligence is very much underrated, and they are often looked upon as lazy uninteresting animals, only to be tolerated in a house so long as they devote themselves to nocturnal raids against mice or rats, as the case may be. However, they cannot be put on a par with the dog, for as far as present as well as past experience shews, the cat, with certain honourable exceptions, is neither as useful, as faithful, nor as intelligent as our canine friend.
The dog knows its owner, and will always make itself comfortable in any place that the owner chooses to take it, provided he is there himself. The cat, on the other hand, knows its owner’s house and furniture, attaches itself to them, and seldom troubles itself at all about the presence or absence of its owner; hence the great difficulty of removing cats from one home to another. Sometimes they may be induced to take kindly to new quarters, but very rarely. If Puss be taken to a strange house, it will first of all examine and smell every article of furniture in the rooms it is allowed to enter; if it finds the same things that it has been accustomed to, perhaps the discovery may reconcile it to remain; but if all is strange, the creature exhibits symptoms of positive distress, and will even make efforts to return to the old home; and this may perhaps account for the stories told of Egyptian cats rushing back into blazing houses after they had been once brought out of them with difficulty; for it has been gravely asserted that the Egyptian cats preferred to perish with their homes when fires broke out, rather than abandon them.
Some years ago The Times gave an account of a remarkable incident, illustrating in a striking way the sagacity and kindness of a dog; the account had appeared in two other newspapers, but we have not the means of verifying it. A cat named Dick was one day enjoying a meal of scraps, when a needle and thread became entangled in his dinner; the poor animal unconsciously partook of these adjuncts, which stuck in his throat. Carlo, a dog on very friendly terms with Dick, observed that something was wrong, hurried up to him, and seemed to receive some kind of communication from him. The dog and the cat became physician and patient. Carlo commenced operations by licking Dick’s neck, the cat holding its head a little aside to give Carlo a fair chance. This licking operation continued with short intervals of rest for nearly twenty-four hours, Carlo occasionally pausing to press his tongue against his friend’s neck, as if trying to find some sharp-pointed instrument thrust from the inside to the outside. At length Carlo was seen, his whole body quivering with excitement, trying to catch something with his teeth. In this he succeeded. Giving a sudden jerk, he pulled the needle through the hide of the cat, where it hung by the thread which still held it from the inside. A by-stander then finished the surgical operation by drawing out the thread; and Carlo looked as if he were saying: ‘See what I did!’
We have just been told of a very remarkable instance of intelligence displayed by a cat belonging to one of our contributors. After having waited in vain outside a rat’s hole for the appearance of the occupant, puss hit upon the plan of ‘drawing’ her prey, by fetching a piece of meat and placing it near the hole as a bait, after which she hid behind a box and waited for results. Whether the bait took or not, we are not informed, but the wily scheme deserved success.
For the following instances of affection and sagacity in cats, we are indebted to a lady correspondent.
‘Last October,’ she says, ‘I was staying a few days with a friend in a small country village not many miles from Edinburgh. One morning I was about to leave my bedroom, and had just opened the window, when I saw a large yellow cat wandering about in the grass which surrounded the house. The creature had a timid scared look, as if not much in the habit of associating with human beings. I spoke to it in a tone of encouragement, however; on hearing which it leaped up on the window-sill and began to purr in a friendly way. I told my friend the lady of the house about the cat, when she gave me the following account of it. “This poor animal belonged to my deceased father. It came to our house a very small kitten, and was accustomed from time to time to receive food from my father’s hand, with now and then a little caress or kindly word. But my father was not a cat-fancier, and as a general rule did not take any great notice of the creature. About a year and a half ago my father grew seriously ill, and after a few weeks of suffering, died. During his illness the cat went up and down stairs like a distracted creature, refusing food, and mewing again and again in a mournful way. Sometimes it came into the sick-room, and jumped on the bed; but its master was too ill to notice it, and it went away with a disappointed look. When all was over, and the last attentions had been paid to my father, and all was quiet in the death-chamber, the poor cat came in and took up its position on the bed at his feet. From this place nothing would induce the creature to move; and feeling astonished at its fidelity and affection, we let it lie during the day; though strange to say, it manifested a desire to leave the room at night, returning always about nine in the morning, and if the door was shut, mewing till it gained admittance. On the funeral-day, the faithful creature did not seem to understand the absence of its master; it left the room upon the removal of the body; but the first thing we saw when the mourners returned was the poor pussie lying at the door of the chamber. It was long,” said the lady in conclusion, “before the affectionate animal recovered its usual sprightliness; and I would not like anything to happen to a creature which has testified such a strong affection for one so dear to me.”’
Another story is as follows: ‘A cousin of mine had a cat which had just brought into the world some fine healthy kittens. According to the usual custom on these occasions, some of the kittens were drowned, while two were retained for the mother to rear. These were kept in a compartment of an old kitchen table or “dresser.” This snug retreat had a little door which was kept closed by means of a bolt. One day a young visitor desired to see the kittens, which were accordingly taken to the drawing-room by one of the daughters of the house. During the absence of the kittens, the cat, which had been in the garden, came into the kitchen, and went as usual to repose beside her little ones. She looked into the dresser, and finding no kittens there, “clashed” to the door in a rage, and left the kitchen, her tail thick with indignation! This fact was told me by one of the young ladies of the household, who was busy in the kitchen at the time and saw the whole thing. The cat’s furious manner of slamming the door resembled so closely an irate housewife’s way of doing so, that my informant was exceedingly amused, and regarded the cat henceforth as a sort of wonder!’