The Cat: Its Natural History; Domestic Varieties; Management and Treatment

by Philip M. Rule

Often when they are alone, or even if their mother is with them, they will mistake no matter what part of their bodies for teats and begin to suck it, as a child of six months will suck its finger or even the tip of its foot.

15th May.—To-day I held Riquet on my hand for three minutes. I was smoking a cigar; the little creature stretched out its neck, poked its nose up in the air, and sniffed with a persistent little noise. A sparrow, whose cage was hung up over us, frightened at my smoking-cap, began to fly round the cage and beat at it with its wings. At the sound of this noise Riquet was seized with a sudden fit of trembling, which made him squat down precipitately in my hand. Movements of this kind are reflex ones, the production of which is associated in the organism with certain auditory impressions; but the animal is necessarily more or less conscious of them, or will soon be so. From five minutes’ observation I have thus learnt that Riquet is sensible to strong smells, and that he already goes through the consecutive movements of sentiment and fear.

Riquet’s head is visibly changing to silver-grey; the marks on his back are also assuming this shade.

I took Mitis in my hands, stretched them out and drew them up again. He does not seem to know quite what to make of it; he attempts a few steps, feels about uncertainly with his head, and comes in contact with my coat smelling of the cigar; he appears to be scenting my coat, but not with so much noise and vivacity as Riquet does. He waggles his head about, feels about with his paws, and tries to suck my coat and my hands; he is evidently out of his element and unhappy. The mother calls to him from the bottom of the box; this causes him to turn his head quickly in the direction from which the sound comes (what a number of movements or ideas associated in the intelligence and organism of a little animal four days old!); he starts off again, making a step forward, then drawing back, turning to the right and to the left, with a waddling movement. I give him back to his mother.

I thought I noticed once again this evening that the light of my lamp, when held near the kittens’ box, caused rather lively excitation of their eyelids, although these were closed. The light must pass through these thin coverings and startle the retinas. The kittens were agitated during a few seconds; they raised and shook their heads, then lowered them and hid them in the maternal bosom.

The noise of carriages, the sound of my voice, the twittering of the sparrow, the movements imparted to the box by my hand—all throw them into the same kind of agitation. These movements may be coupled with the movements, unconscious no doubt, but determined by external causes, which are observed in the young.

16th May.—Mitis’ tail is thickening at the root; the hair of its head and neck is close and silky; he will no doubt turn out a considerable fraction of an Angora.

When I place the kittens on the palm of my hand they inhale strongly and with a certain amount of persistence; this is because their sense of smell operates no doubt with tolerable completeness, in view of the species, and in the absence of visual perception, and by reason of the imperfect operation of their touch.

This evening Mitis, having escaped from the constraint in which his mother holds him to perform his toilet, half plantigrade half gastéropode, dragged himself slowly, though as fast as he was able, along his mother’s paws, and at last nestled down in the soft fur of her stomach. While in this position his head, rolling like that of a drunken man, knocked against the head of Riquet, who was in the act of sucking. Instantly Mitis lifts a paw and brings it down on his brother’s head. The latter holds on, as he is very comfortably spread out on the bottom of the box, and is sucking a teat placed low down. A second attempt of Mitis’ fails equally. He then performs rapid movements with his head, searching vigorously for his cup, but not finding it. The mother then places a paw on his back, and his centre of gravity being thus better established, he at last accomplishes his object. Here we have several actions which are no doubt in some degree conscious, but which come chiefly under the head of automatism: the scent which helps in the search for the teat, the instinct to dispute the ground with another who is discovered to be sucking, the movements of intentional repulsion, of struggle, of combativeness. What an admirable machine for sensation, sentiment, volition, activity, and consciousness, is a young animal only just born!

17th May.—I have observed—or think I have observed—in Mitis, the more indolent of the two brothers, the first symptoms of playfulness: lying on his back with his mouth half open, he twiddles his four paws with an air of satisfaction, and as if seeking to touch some one or something. It is eight o’clock in the evening, the window is open, the sparrow is singing with all its might in its cage, we are talking and laughing close to the cat’s box. Do all these noises in some way excite the sensoriums of the two repus kittens? The fact is, that they have been in a state of agitation for more than a quarter of an hour, travelling one over the other and walking over their mother’s stomach, paws, and head. Mitis, the heavier of the two and soonest tired out, was the first to return to the teat. Riquet’s return to the maternal breast has been a long and roundabout journey from one corner of the box to the other, and round and round his mother.