Which all Cats do, even to this day.
A French writer says, the three animals that waste most time over their toilet are cats, flies, and women.
The attitudes and motions of a Cat are very graceful, because she is furnished with collar-bones. She can, therefore, carry food to her mouth like a monkey, can clasp, can climb, and can strike sideways, and seat herself at a height upon a very narrow space.
The lateral movements of the head in Cats are not so extensive as in the owl, but are, nevertheless, considerable. A cat can look round pretty far behind it without moving its body, which might be apt to startle its prey. The spine of the Cat is very full and loose, in order that all its movements in all possible directions and circumstances may be free and unrestrained. For this purpose, too, all the joints which connect its bones together are extremely loose and free. Thus, the Cat is enabled to get through small apertures, to leap from great heights, and even to fall in an unfavourable posture with little or no injury to itself. Its ears are not so moveable as those of some other animals, but are more so than in very many animals. The shape of the external ear, or rather cartilaginous portion, is admirably adapted to intercept sounds. The natural posture is forward and outward, so as to catch sounds proceeding from the front and sides. The upper half, however, is moveable, and by means of a thin layer of muscular fibres, it is made to curve backwards and receive sounds from the rear. Although a Cat cannot lick its face and head, it nevertheless cleans these parts thoroughly; in fact, as we often observe, a Cat licks its right paw for a long time, and then brushes down the corresponding side of the head and face; and when this is accomplished, it does the same with the other paw and corresponding side.
“‘A May kitten makes a dirty Cat,’ is a piece of Huntingdonshire folk-lore,” says Mr. Cuthbert Bede, “quoted to me in order to deter me from keeping a kitten that had been born in May.”
Dr. Turton says, “The Cat has a more voluminous and expressive vocabulary than any other brute; the short twitter of complacency and affection, the purr of tranquility and pleasure, the mew of distress, the growl of anger, and the horrible wailing of pain.” For myself, I seldom hear a catawauling without thinking of that droll picture in Punch of the old lady sitting up in bed and pricking up her ears to the music of a mewing Cat.
“Oh, ah! yes, it’s the waits,” says she, with a delighted chuckle; “I love to listen to ’em. It may be fancy, but somehow they don’t seem to play so sweetly as they did when I was a girl. Perhaps it is that I am getting old, and don’t hear quite so well as I used to do.”
Few, even amongst Pussy’s most ardent admirers, who possess the faculty of hearing, and have heard the music of Cats, would desire the continuance of their “sweet voices”; yet a concert was exhibited at Paris, wherein Cats were the performers. They were placed in rows, and a monkey beat time to them, as the Cats mewed; and the historian of the facts relates that the diversity of the tones which they emitted produced a very ludicrous effect. This exhibition was announced to the Parisian public by the title of “Concert Miaulant.”
This would seem to prove that Cats may be taught tricks, which is not generally believed, but is nevertheless the case.
In Pool’s Twists and Turns about the Streets of London, mention is made of “a poor half-naked boy, strumming a violin, while another urchin with a whip makes two half-starved Cats go through numerous feats of agility.”