It is scarcely necessary to recount the wonderful researches of the great Prof. Grimaldi, the great French naturalist. His name has become a household word, and his fame world-wide. When I unearthed his carefully prepared paper it was yellow with age, but his chirography was a marvel of neatness, and distinct as copper plate. I have made a literal translation of it, and will give it in his own words without emendations.

THE CAT

By Alphonse Leon Grimaldi, F.R.S., F.G.S., M.O.S., D.H. du C., M.F.A.S., M.F.A., et al.

I was born with an intense passion for animals. I am a Frenchman, therefore am I a man of strong passions. I have not married. My love is for the animal kingdom, and it has been returned to me one hundred fold all my life. In woman there is deceit, and in man deception rules his nature. If I treat an animal with kindness, I will, invariably, be overwhelmed with gratitude. The animal never bites the hand that feeds it—the human being frequently does. Therefore, I live among animals and center my affections in them. I have made my unalterable choice. I teach the gentler manners and the magnanimity, perhaps the greater intelligence of those of God's creatures who are far above their self-constituted masters, and their inexhaustible love of even the hand that smites, if it be the hand of a beneficiary. You have repeatedly noticed that a large and powerful dog can never be persuaded to attack or oppress a smaller or a feebler one. Tell me how frequently you have known a man of influence, power, riches or strength, to oppress and take advantage of a feebler or poorer one? Is it not a daily, nay, hourly occurrence? Have you ever seen a healthy animal oppress a sickly one? Never! Times without number you have been an eyewitness to the tender care and solicitude of the well for the sick animal, and as frequently you have seen the unfortunate provided with every necessary by his more fortunate comrades.

How often do you find these traits in the human being? For this, and for many other reasons with which I might tire you, I love all animals but man.

Men declare that only the biped, man, is endowed with reason. It is false. It is so declared, in order that man may possess one characteristic that will elevate him above, and distinguish him from what he chooses, falsely, to call the lower animals.

Your Noah Webster, who padded your dictionary in order to make a formidable book, like many another man, says that animals are not possessed of reasoning powers, but have only instinct. He gives the definition of instinct as follows: "INSTINCT. A certain power or disposition of mind by which, independent of all instructions or experience, without deliberation, and without having any end in view, animals are unerringly directed to do spontaneously whatever is necessary for the preservation of the individual or the continuation of the kind."

This is your American authority, and you must accept it, for you have adopted the dictionary. By this definition, and with only one question, I will prove to you that animals have reasoning powers, just as men have. Have not animals an end in view when they gather their food and build their homes for the winter months, when they rear their young, anticipate the coming of the night and of that longer night constituting the darkness of age and death, when preparing for the coming of their Master, and when, with a grand evidence of their superiority over man, they anticipate the changes of the weather?

The intelligent man admits that animals not only have minds, but that they reason also. The sooner the whole world admits this fact the sooner we will arrive at the truth in the premises, and give the feline her due as well as be just to other animals. The study of natural history unfolds to the mind a new universe of beauty, interest and profit. The beautiful book of nature is spread out in inexhaustible profusion to all creatures, and no one can claim a monopoly of this grand study. Other animals read it constantly, and seem to understand it better than man. Man has not been able, with all his knowledge of science, to make a barometer which will give as unerring calculations concerning the weather as will the animals which he considers beneath him in intelligence. I instance more particularly the wild goose, who will indicate the temperature of the season, and I will remark that there is no compass or needle which can indicate the course of a pigeon while it navigates the air equal to its own instinct. In the hydraulics of nature, the beaver stands foremost of all living creatures, and the bee is the greatest builder in the world. Do you not admit that "instinct" will no longer answer as a name for intelligence in what you call the "brute" animals? Is it without deliberation and without having an end in view that, when you take a young pigeon from the cote in which it was hatched, and carrying it in a coop to a distance of four hundred miles from its home, you free it, and it takes its flight in a bee line for the cote in which it was born? What shall that quality of mind be called?

Dogs, Cats and other animals have been carried for hundreds of miles from their homes, and but a few days elapsed before they return to the place from whence they were taken. Have they "no end in view," and is this done "without deliberation?"

There is a species of fish-hawk, in your Northern lakes, which has most remarkable eyes, microscopic as well as telescopic. You may often see this fellow, early in the morning, hovering over the placid water of some lonely lake, when he will suddenly dart off, leave the water and take up his position upon the bare limb of a blighted tree, and watch the track over which he flew. Presently you will see him leave his high perch and, with the accuracy and velocity of an arrow, strike the bosom of the lake, grasp a fish and bear it to his perch. Nature has furnished this wise bird with a bait which enables him to become a successful fisherman. He has in his throat, or oesophagus, a small sac, in which he secretes a kind of oil. This oil he drops upon the surface, the fishes are attracted to it, and at once there is a great commotion in the water. The hawk, seeing this, takes advantage of the situation, and pounces upon his prey.

It is silly in man to assume that all he sees is but the effect of law. It is more sensible to assume that there is an intelligence behind law and matter. The intelligence shown in plants cannot be denied. Take, for instance, the aquatic plants. They will travel long distances over walls and other impediments before they will stop their growth.

That animals have a moral sense is evidenced in the fact of the prominence in their natures of the attributes of reason, memory, invention, motive, ingenuity, will and gratitude. Granting these premises, and grant them you must from the proofs which I have submitted to you, and which have come under my own observation, you must admit that animals reason and think and give the same evidence of free intelligence observable in human nature.

That dogs, Cats, horses, elephants, birds and even pigs can be taught to do most wonderful things, millions of people can attest from personal observation, and you have the proof in your own minds, to show free intellectual ability on the part of wild and tame animals.

In my love for the Cat and my preference for that beautiful animal above all others, I do not stand alone. Nearly all men of note among the learned, as well as others, both in ancient and modern times, have signified their preference for the Cat in the strongest terms. Mahomet almost worshipped the Cat, and declared that his own should have a prominent place in his heaven. Richelieu possessed a house full of Cats, with twenty favorites, whom he cherished with great care and fed with his own hands. Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Moore, Talleyrand, Edgar Allen Poe, Chateaubriand, Robert Southey, Dr. Johnson, Benjamin Franklin, Julius Caesar, Thomas Gray, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Walter Raleigh, Cardinal Wolsey, Rousseau, Lord Chesterfield, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, Plutarch, and thousands of others, have expressed their admiration of my favorite. Ancient history tells us of more than one nation that sainted the Cat, while others still hold the animal in high veneration. Certainly it must be admitted that the Cat possesses some wonderful attributes the evidence of which prompts its distinction. I claim for the Cat a higher order of intellect than exists in any other animal. While I love the dog, and claim for him a greater degree of intelligence than may be accorded to the horse, I class the Cat and the dog to be as distinct in their individuality and with as much difference as you see existing between man and woman. The organism of the Cat is of a very delicate nature, and, therefore, more susceptible to all influences. They are quicker of perception than any other animal, and, therefore, they more readily acquire knowledge.

By an extended series of experiments I have demonstrated this fact, and would give the results of my labor were I not positive that my readers have made a comparison of the dog and the Cat, and arrived at the same conclusion without anything more than a casual observation. In experimenting, however, my attention was directed with more particularity to the manner of communication of ideas between Cats, and what was my surprise to discover that they have a language of their own, embracing not only words but, in a large degree, signs. You may the better understand me when I call attention to the fact that there are few words, comparatively, in the French language, but there is, among Frenchmen, a sign language; as, for instance, there is no word to express the meaning of our shrug of the shoulders and the extending of the hand and forearms. Words cannot express the feelings of the heart when men and women of every nativity bow their heads before their God. Because of this predominance of signs in the language of the Cat, it will be difficult for me to describe their mode of idea-communication; but I will make the attempt, and endeavor to bring it as clearly as possible to your minds, in order that you may comprehend it as distinctly as it presents itself to mine.