28th May.When, standing close to the box, I take Mitis in my hands, he looks at the box, bends his head, stretches out his paws, and shows a considerable desire to get down, but without making any effort towards this end. I hold him a little lower down, at a fewcentimètresfrom his mother, and he no longer hesitates but lets himself glide downto her, his movements, however, only turning out a success thanks to my assistance. Can it be that he had (what Tiedemann does not even allow his fourteen-months-old child to have possessed) a vague perception of distance, of empty and inhabited space, anterior to personal experience? “He had not yet any idea of the falling of bodies from a height, or of the difference between empty and inhabited space. On the 14th October he still wanted to precipitate himself from heights, and several times he let his biscuit fall to the ground when intending to dip it in his cup.”
The kittens endeavour to climb along the sides of the box, but their idea of height (perhaps an instinctive idea) is not sufficiently determined; they seem quite astounded at not reaching the goal with the first stroke. At the same time I may be mistaken in my observations; perhaps they went up these four or fivecentimètresmechanically, because in walking along horizontally they found under their paws the surface of the partition which may have seemed a natural continuation of their road. Perhaps they have no wish to get up to the edge of the box.
28th May.—The grey spots on Riquet’s back are now almost as large as the black ones.
The eyes of both kittens are getting less and less blue; they are assuming an indistinctcolour, between dirty grey and light brown. Their expression is frank and sympathetic; they seem to direct their looks consciously and voluntarily.
Riquet is looking at me with an expression of pleasure, seated upright, with his paws lifted languidly. I hold my finger near him, and he extends his left paw. I stroke the left side of his head, and he leans the part which I caress on my finger, as a full-grown cat would do, and rubs himself two or three times running against my finger. These areinventedmovements—I mean movements furnished all of a sudden by the stimulus of hereditary virtualities, and which seem to astonish the young animal as well as to please him; it is thus that we see automatic movements at one moment coming under the control of consciousness, and the next escaping from it, refined, simplified, adapted, and perfected. Life invents but few new movements; but there are many, no doubt, ready to appear if the influences of surroundings permitted it.
29th May.—They are learning more and more to exercise their muscles and perfect their movements; they are daily acquiring fresh powers andadaptations, and in their games with each other and their mother they show intention and pleasure; they are learning more and more to distinguish people; if anyone presents a finger to them, they always hold out their nose, or else a paw; this seems to have become a reflex action with them. They also appear to localise certain sensations which are in some sort artificial. I touch the tip of Mitis’ left paw, (he has been sucking for the last ten minutes); he stops sucking, and instantly turns his head in the direction of his paw; but this is perhaps because he has seen my hand, and the muscular sensation associated with this visual sensation may have determined his movement alone and almost automatically. I vary the experiment, however, and pass my finger two or three times running across his neck; he raises his head and looks behind him, as if understanding where I had touched him. However this may be, I should not like to affirm in him the faculty of localising pleasure or pain, except as a sort of automatic localisation of sensations, which would be the result of certain anterioradaptations.
The mother is engaged on the toilet of Mitis, who neither looks pleased nor displeased; he makes a sound which is neither a cry of pain, nor the whining of complaint or anger; if he is giving expression to a mental condition well defined to himself, I cannot guess at it. It is a tremulous noise which might be represented by the following letters:mrrrimr....
2nd June.—Riquet’s ears grow more than those of Mitis. The hair of the latter has ceased to grow, and his tail is scarcely more bushy than his brother’s. He will not be more of an Angora than Riquet, in spite of the long silky hair, which during the first days grew so abundantly on his neck, stomach, and thighs.
Riquet has become more patient, and Mitis more lively during the last few days. It would be very presumptuous to pretend to found precise inductions as to the future on observations taken during the first days; hypothesis itself must maintain the most scrupulous reserve, especially as regards predictions concerning intelligence and character. A cat which appears very intelligent at the age of one or two months, often shows very mediocre intelligence when a year or two old, andvice versâ. As to the colour and nature of the hair, six weeks must have elapsed before one can give any certain opinion as to the real shade that it will be, and as to its flexibility, abundance, brilliancy, and waviness. As for the ears I have often erred in my predictions ... which are scarcely perceptible at birth, and during the first eight or ten days, will sometimes grow to a disproportionate length afterwards. With regard to the paws and the tail, half adecimètre’slength at the momentof birth indicates undoubtedly an appreciable length later on. One can also determine on the first day the future firmness of the muscles and bones by the relative resistance of these little velvety lumps when held in the hand. A strong voice, which is more especially the appendage of male kittens, indicates at any rate good lungs.
Mitis, who is so gentle, has more flattened ears than Riquet; the latter’s stand up more like those of foxes and wolves. The little complementarypavillion... which is attached to both edges of the ear, slightly towards the bottom, and which in man is designated by a slight rudimentary excrescence, is beginning to appear in both my kittens.
They are now well advanced in the art of play; they fence well with their paws, lick each other, and tumble and roll each other over. Riquet, who has some difficulty in standing upright on his legs, has attempted a jump. They try to bite each other at play, specially aiming at each other’s paws. Often by mistake they seize their own paws with their teeth and gnaw at them; but they are not long in finding out their error.
I place them on the ground. They tremble, seem frightened, or rather astonished, or undecided, and make a few uncertain movements. One of them perceives the mother at a distanceof about amètre, looking at them from under a chair. He goes straight up to her, but very slowly, and with a great deal of waddling; all of a sudden he stops. He has heard his brother’s voice, the latter having whined on my touching him to rouse him out of his persistent immovability; he turns his head in our direction, distinguishes me, turns straight round, and comes up to me with much greater rapidity and assurance than he had shown in going to his mother. The reason of this is, that the road to me was shorter and surer, and the stimulus to traverse it greater, owing to the larger proportions of my body. I place them back in the box, and they begin playing again with zest. The one who had only moved feebly on the floor, walks, and even jumps, much better this morning. This little outing seems to have stimulated him to an effort which he had not made before. In like manner we sometimes note progress in young children from day to day.
They can now climb up to the middle of the box.
A board, a fewcentimètreswide, is nailed to the top of the box, and covers about a fourth part of it. Mitis looks at it with longing eyes; he makes up his mind, draws himself up as erect as he can, stretches up his paws to the partition and within fivecentimètresofthe upper plank; he is longing to make an upward leap, and finally he ventures on it; but his heavy abdomen and his weak legs play him false, and he rolls over ignominiously. In like manner a young child, not yet firm on his legs, leaving the support of the chair to venture a step alone, falls in a soft heap on the floor.
4th June.—They play more and more with my finger, bite at it and lick it. They seem to look at all objects more attentively, and more sympathetically at their mother and me.
When they are playing about under their mother, one sees only a confusion of white paws, pink noses, shining eyes, and whisking tails. I have put them on my bed. They walk much better there than in the box, and infinitely better than on the floor; they studied everything in this new locality, walking, climbing up and down, sliding and rolling about. Riquet, having reached the edge of the bed, would have fallen over if I had not held him back. His more circumspect brother, finding himself in the same situation, leant his head over for a moment, and then, as if defying a danger more or less realised; turned round and precipitated himself at the other side of the bed.
11th June.—They frisk and bound about,and catch at all objects indiscriminately with their claws to try and climb. They look into each other’s eyes as if trying to discover the expression of sentiments and ideas. This may proceed from astonishment and curiosity, and the delight of the ever new impressions which the movement of the eyes cannot fail to produce in them. But must it not also be partly the result of an hereditary predisposition of their organisation, which leads them to seek in the eyes for the meaning which they express? We know that adult animals, as well as man, are endowed with this tendency which proceeds from instinct rather than individual experience.
Partly from imitation of their mother and sister, partly from the teaching of their instinct, they went off one day to a certain out-of-the-way spot, where was placed a pan full of ashes, the object of which does not require to be explained. Observing this, I carried them from time to time to this pan. The smell proceeding from it was in itself sufficient to excite them to satisfy their needs. Three or four such experiences sufficed to associate with the idea of this smell the idea of the pan, of the place where it was, and of the need to be satisfied. I do not say that this habit of cleanliness, so quickly acquired, may not as quickly be lost, by means of new associationstaking the place of the first. There is no doubt, however, that if the people would make it a rule to watch over the formation of habits in cats during the first weeks (and probably also in other animals and in children), it would not afterwards be necessary to have recourse to a system of barbarous, and often useless measures, in order to obtain from them by violence that which nature will manage alone with but very slight assistance.
The shutters are closed on account of the extreme heat, so that the room is in semi-darkness, and all the objects in it steeped in mysterious shadow. Riquet, frisking about at a little distance from the box, sees a footstool at about amètre’sdistance. This object, with its four feet and their shadows would easily produce in my mind the illusion of some mysterious animal. This, however, cannot be the case with the kitten, unless we suppose in it a mental confusion of the inanimate with the animate, that is to say, the animalisation of the inanimate. My opinion is that the surprise, and presently, too, the terror which Riquet manifests, and which keeps him transfixed to the spot, have their origin rather in a certain indeterminate tendency to fear in the presence of all sudden and unusual impressions. Such an apparition would have had no effect whatever on him a few days ago;but to-day it is so much out of harmony with his now numerous experiences, that it contradicts and jars against all his familiar habits. This is, in my mind, the sole cause of his terror. However it may be, he draws himself up on his small paws, bristles his tail, humps up his back, and without either retreating or advancing, sways right and left in the same attitude. I make a movement; this noise brings his paroxysm of fear to a crisis, and he gives expression to it by a fretfulfû; he then turns round and goes off as fast as his legs will carry him, the first way that comes, which happens to be to the side of the bed.
12th June.—They are attracted by the noise which I make in crumpling paper, in scratching the wall, or tapping a piece of furniture; but metallic sounds, if soft, do not have the same effect on them; the noise of objects being knocked, dull heavy sounds, or the noise of sharp voices, astonish them and make them prick up their ears, but not lift their paws. They take pleasure, however, in all the noises which they make themselves, provided they are not too reverberating, or caused by the displacement or fall of some large object. The loudest voice that I can put on pleases them almost as much as the little playful tones I generally address them in; they also delightin the strings of articulated consonants, which I repeat to them; but they do not like whistling, although they are not so much annoyed by it as is their mother, who comes up to me and rubs her head under my chin and over my mouth, and gives me little taps on my lips with her paw directly she hears me whistling. What specially delights them are the dry sounds which their claws make on wood, linen, paper, the straw seats of chairs, and the covering of the bed.
Mitis has drunk some milk this morning for the first time. I put the tip of my finger, moistened with this fluid, under his nose, and he licked it several times running. Enticed by the smell, he dipped his nose into a cup of milk, but did not know how to set about drinking; up came the mother and took his place, as if the milk was her rightful property. She generally tries to take away from her little ones anything fresh, when it is first given to them, perhaps out of maternal precaution, not thinking them strong enough to digest anything but her milk. As she laps in a great hurry, she always spills a certain quantity of milk round the saucer. I placed Mitis in front of what had been spilled, and whether by chance, or because he was incited by the smell, he fell to licking and cleaned it all up. A quarter of an hour later he drankout of the cup, very awkwardly however, and very little, plunging his nose so far into the milk as to make him sneeze.
Riquet, to whom the same advances were made, licked the tip of my finger, but did not touch the milk in the cup. He is less strong than Mitis, and possibly less precocious in this respect.
When I come back into the room after an absence of even half an hour, the mother raises herself on her paws, as if moved by a spring, and her two satellites with her,—all at the same instant and with the same movement.
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 ofthe 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, tendencyto 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.
Nothing in the shape of food comes amiss to Riquet: soup, meat, potatoes, pease, lard—he snaps at, and devours whatever he comes across and whatever is offered him; but one must beware of the little glutton’s sharp claws. Mitis takes his food more gently.
18th June.—Riquet is playing with me on the sofa. A sole is placed on the table. The smell of the fish excites and puzzles him, for he does not know whence it comes; he travels over me in all directions, trying to follow the scent, and is soon perched up on my left shoulder, which is tolerably close to the table; he works towards the table, and I stoop my shoulder to let him slide on to it. He rubs his nose first against a spoon and then against a glass; the plate containing the sole is only adecimètrefrom the glass, but as he does not know that a plate contains food, and that it is from there that the savoury smell proceeds, he does not direct his steps towards it. Finally, however, he finds himself in front of the plate, puts his four paws on it, and instantly disposes himself to eat the whole fish. I instantly carry him off. What a small number of experiences he will need (two or three only I have determined) in order to adapt to actual practice these judgments and movements which unite instinctively with certain sensations! We call thisreasoningin man, and, nevertheless, it closely resembles a piece of subjective mechanism, which is blind at starting, and which adapts itself to objective representations with such promptitude, that consciousness seems to follow, not to precede, its operations.
Whilst I was at my breakfast they climbed up my legs, and I had the weakness to let them stay for a moment on the table. They invaded my plate, Mitis going so far as to bite into the fish, and Riquet licking and gnawing the edge of the plate; the smell of the fish is so penetrating that he confuses it with the plate. Moreover, he has no idea ofcontainingand beingcontained. Soon he comes across a mouthful of fish which I have prepared for him: he flattens himself out on the plate, and eats with courageous and deliberate precipitation, inclining his head now to the left, now to the right, sometimes closing his eyes from delight, but oftenest keeping them open and fixed attentively on the plate,—one would say he was afraid of losing his precious morsel; and here we see a result of the preservative instinct which he has received from his ancestors.
Mitis has got into a round earthen pan, and from association of impressions tries to satisfy a need which he would not otherwise have felt. The vessel, however, being small, and his movements causing it to totter, he jumped out and ran off to his own pan.
20th June.—Mitis suddenly springs from the table to the floor, first feeling his mother with the end of his paw, and then passing over her without touching her: is it a personalor a social motive which makes him act thus? Does he wish to avoid walking on ground that is not firm, or is he trying not to hurt his mother? In like manner will a horse, on the point of trampling a live body, hastily withdraw his foot.
They have been playing for a long time on my bed; before I go to sleep I shall carry them to their own bedroom, to their mother who awaits them somewhat sadly. They came back into my room as soon as I did myself. I sit down in front of my table, they climb up along my legs, and I determine to place them back on my bed. Twenty minutes later I reinstate them a second time in their domicile, but they do not stay there two minutes. I had just got into bed again when back they come, spring at the bed-cover, the chairs, the wall, with a noise of scratching and rustling which excites them to continue their difficult ascent; at the end of two minutes the siege is accomplished, and I am seized upon, trodden over, scratched and gnawed. I cannot be master in my own room except by shutting the door, at which, however, they come and scratch, but without much persistence.
So there they are, now pretty well masters of their movements, taking headers to get down from the bed to the chair, from thechair to the floor, climbing up along the curtains and the tapestry, and even attempting to climb the furniture and polished objects. A few more days and their mode of descending will be less like tumbling, their ascents less like scrambling: they will spring and they will bound, and will be real individual cats.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome and London.
Footnotes:
[1]The Zoological Society has now fitted up the building, which was formerly the Reptile House, with new cages, and to this “Cat House” the specimens above alluded to have been removed, together with other forms which were kept within the “Small Mammals’ House,” such as the Pampas Cat, the Ocelot, the Geoffroy’s Cat, Serval, etc.
[2]The number of visitors admitted on the occasion of this one-day show amounted to the grand total of 19,310.
[3]The above editorial note was added when the chapter appeared inThe Animal World.
[4]The Latins had the happy expressionmansuetusto express this idea.