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

by Philip M. Rule

They still continue to be very fond of us, and not to be startled by strangers.

I have tried to make Riquet drink: I put his nose into the milk, and he then dipped his paw in himself and licked it, but would not lap. He went so far as to approach the cup with his nose and just touch it with his lips, but he then started off again.

He is now under the chimney, sniffing and then scratching the ashes, which, as his movements indicate, remind him of his ash-pan. If I once or twice tolerated an infraction of my rule, the habit of cleanliness so easily formed in him would perhaps be hopelessly lost; this is why I hasten to carry him to his pan.

At 3 o’clock we repeated with Riquet the experiment which had failed in the morning; we smeared his nose with milk. He then licked it, and afterwards put his nose in the cup, and drank a good teaspoonful.

This morning they are more vigorous and nimble than yesterday, and they have been disporting themselves on my bed for more than an hour, whilst their mother and elder sister were engaged, by way of recreation, in snatching tufts of hair from each other’s coats, in scratching and throttling each other. The mother gives a cry to indicate that this sport has reached its limits. Mitis has tumbled off the bed with affright, uttering a plaintive cry.

A ludicrous incident very nearly parted me from my two little pets. An old laundress, whose sight is very feeble, as well as her mind, shut them up in her bundle of linen, on which they had been playing whilst she was counting it. I gave them up for lost, having searched for them everywhere, even in my boots. Three hours later they were brought back to me safe and sound. This is what had happened: on opening the bundle, out walked a kitten (Mitis) who seemed very much surprised, he was put in a basket with a cup of milk beside him; the other was only found an hour later, to the great astonishment of the laundress, squatting under a cupboard and showing nothing but the tip of his nose. He refused all manner of consolation, and would not touch the milk, in spite of the example of Mitis who did not wait to be pressed.

As soon as they were safe back with me they both ate some bread soaked in milk.

The mother was very much dejected by their absence. When, after calling them in vain with her most caressing voice, and making pretence to play to entice them to come to her, she became convinced of their absence, she filled my rooms with agonised screams. She then begged to be let out to look for them in the court-yard, but soon came in again and began screaming and hunting about as before. She came up to me and got up on my knees, looked me fixedly in the eyes, and then curled herself up on the bed where the kittens often sleep with her. Her eyes went beyond the expression of profound despair; her eyelids quivered, a slight moisture covered the eyeballs, and at the inside corners there was the appearance of tears. There is no doubt that cats cry.

I have several times noticed, but in a specially distinct manner to-day, on lifting them away from any place where they are comfortable, an instinctive, or perhaps intentional, tendency to lean either with the stomach or the paws, in order to remain fixed to the spot. An analogous movement may be noticed in young children, when one tries to take them out of the arms of some one they are fond of. I might no doubt have observed this fact in my kittens long ago.

I was holding Mitis in my hands, and I lifted him near to his mother and Riquet; he made a precipitate movement to get down to them, instinct urging him to spring—and that all the more since he is now stronger;—but his experience and his strength not sufficing to enable him to adapt his efforts to the distance he had to cross. Thus it is that falling from the bed often means in his case a bad attempt at jumping down. It is also possible that it is the example of his mother and big sister, as much as his increased strength, which suggests these somewhat impulsive bounds, which moreover belong to the organic habits of the species. The little unfledged bird also falls from its nest, when attempting a premature flight.