Some streaks of fawn-colour have mixed with the zebra-like black and grey on Riquet’s neck: he is now quadri-coloured.
Mitis is seated on my hand. I kiss him on the head, three times running, making a slight noise with my lips; he shakes his head twice. This is an habitual movement of the mother cat when one kisses her or strokes her head and it displeases, or if she is occupied with something else.
When I pass my hand in front of their heads, at about four centimètres’ distance, they make a movement with the head and wink their eyes; I am not sure whether this means that they see, though their eyes have been more or less open since yesterday evening.
They have not yet begun to purr.
22nd May.—I went up to the box towards twelve o’clock. Riquet’s left eye, the light blue colour of which I can see, seems to perceive me, but it must be very indistinctly. I wave my hand at ten centimètres from his eyes, and it is only the noise I make and the disturbance of the air that cause him to make any movement.
Both Mitis’ eyes are almost entirely open; I hold my finger near his nose without touching it, I wave it from right to left and left to right, and I fancy I perceive in the eyes—in the eyes more than in the head—a slight tendency to move in the direction of my movements.
23rd May, 7 P.M.—Their movements are less trembling, quicker, and fierce not only because of increased strength and exercise, but because intention, directed by eyesight, is beginning to operate.
The more I observe young animals, the more it seems to me that the external circumstances of their development—alimentation, exercise (more or less stimulated and controlled), ventilation, light, attention to their health and their affective sensibilities, care in breeding and training,—are perhaps only secondary factors in their development. Actual sensations, it seems to me, serve only to bring to the service one set of virtualities rather than another; a sentient, intelligent, active being is a tangled skein of innumerable threads, some of which, and not others, will be drawn out by the events of life. This it is that marks out the precise work, limits the power, but at the same time encourages all the pretensions of educators. If all is not present in all, as Jacolot asserted, who can say what is and what is not present in a young animal or a young child?
I placed Mitis on a foot-warmer, the contact with which produced two or three nervous tremblings, somewhat similar to slight shiverings; he seemed pleased, however, and stretched himself out on the warm surface, with his eyes half-closed, as if going to sleep. Afterwards I placed Riquet there; he went through the same trembling movements, but then proceeded with an inspection with his muzzle—scenting or feeling, I do not know which, the article on which he had been deposited. He then gently stretched out a paw and laid himself down flat, the contact with the warm surface inducing sleep, by reason of the familiar associations between the like sensation of warmth experienced on his mother’s breast and the instinctive need of sleep.
When they trot about in their box, some of their movements appear to be directed by sight.