Possibly there is no better way for an author to illustrate his subject or punctuate an argument than by quoting the most interesting and conclusive stories which are directly to the point. I have done so and will continue to do so in this chapter, hoping that the stories narrated will not only be of interest, but impressive and conclusive.

From "Petland," by Rev. J.C. Wood, I take the following story, which is illustrative of the generosity and self-sacrifice of the feline animal. It is a relation about "Pret," the grandson of the original of that name, of whom the reverend gentleman had something to say in a previous chapter:

"He was fond of entertaining his friends in the yard, and was in the habit of bringing dinner to the club for the benefit of his acquaintances, and then wanting a second dinner on his own account, in the evening. He even went so far as to be disgusted with the meals furnished to a neighboring cat, thinking that cat's-meat was not fit for feline consumption. Acting upon this supposition, he was seen to take away the cat's-meat as soon as it was brought by the itinerant purveyor, to carry it into the cellar, bury it under a heap of coals, and to take his own dinner upstairs for his friends."

The imitative power of Pussy has never been illustrated with more force than in the story which I take from the work by Prof. George J. Romanes, and which occurred, as he states, under his personal observation.

"For myself, I may say that my own coachman once had a Cat which, certainly without tuition, learned to open a door that led into the stables from a yard, into which looked some of the windows of my house. Standing at these windows when the Cat did not see me, I have many times witnessed her modus operandi. Walking up to the door, with a most matter-of-course kind of air, she used to spring at the half-hoop handle, just below the thumb-latch. Holding on to the bottom of this half-hoop with one forepaw, she then raised the other to the thumb-piece, and while depressing the latter, finally, with her hind legs, scratched and pushed the doorpost so as to open the door. Precisely similar cases have been described by my correspondents as having been witnessed by them."

It may be interesting to the reader to know that Prof. Darwin, in his great treatise upon animals, declares that Cats with blue eyes are invariably deaf. My experience has not proven this assertion, and, if it is as true as other assertions, in "The Origin of Species," for instance, the evolution of man from the ape, I think the reader has just cause for doubt.

Sir Richard Phillips says in "Million of Facts," American edition, page 48: "The Angora Cat has one eye blue and the other yellow." Also, on page 49: "Perfectly white Cats are deaf."

Regarding this last assertion, I will say I once owned a "perfectly white Cat," which was a Tom, weighing twenty-five pounds, who was not deaf, and I cannot comprehend any just reason why a white Cat should be deaf, or what the color of the fur has to do with the ear or her hearing.

The statement has been made in the works of several writers upon animals and their habits that dogs and Cats would never fraternize. I have not a doubt that the experience of most of my readers will serve to demonstrate the contrary, as my own experience undoubtedly does.

Illustrative of the superior intelligence of the Cat, Prof. Romanes gives the following stories:

"Mrs. Hubbard tells me of a Cat she possessed that was in the habit of poaching young rabbits, to 'eat privately in the seclusion of a disused pig-sty.' One day this Cat caught a small black rabbit, and, instead of eating it, as she always did the brown ones, brought it into the house, unhurt, and laid it at the feet of her mistress. 'She clearly recognized the black rabbit as an unusual specimen and apparently thought it right to show it to her mistress.' Such was not the only instance this Cat showed of zoological discrimination, for on another occasion, having caught another unusual animal, viz., a stoat, she also brought this, alive, into the house, for the purpose of exhibiting it."

Mr. T.B. Groves tells, in "Nature," of a Cat which, on first seeing his own reflection in the mirror, tried to fight it. Meeting with resistance from the glass, the Cat next ran behind the mirror. Not finding the object of his search, he again came to the front, and while keeping his eyes deliberately fixed upon the image, felt round the edge of the glass with one paw, whilst with his head twisted around to the front he assured himself of the persistence of the reflection. He never afterwards condescended to notice the mirror.

A wonderful faculty of the Cat is her quick perception of the uses of mechanical appliances. In corroboration of this assertion, I introduce the following stories:

Couch, in his "Illustrations of Instinct," page 196, gives a case within his own knowledge, of a Cat which, in order to get some milk which was kept in a locked cupboard, used to unlock the door by seating herself on an adjoining table and "repeatedly patting on the bow of the key with her paw, when, with a slight push on the door, she was able to open it. The lock was old and the key turned in it on a very slight impulse."

As a still further instance of the Cat's high appreciation of mechanical appliances, I give an extract from a paper by Mr. Otto, which will have been read at the Linnean Society, before this paper is published.

"At Peara, the residence of Parker Bowan, Esq., a full-grown Cat was one day accidentally locked up in a room, without any other outlet than a small window moved on hinges, and kept shut up by means of a swivel. Not long afterwards the window was found open and the Cat gone. This having happened several times, it was, at last, found that the Cat jumped upon the window sill, placed her forepaws as high as she could reach against the side, deliberately reached with one over to the swivel, moved it from its horizontal to a perpendicular position, and then, leaning with her whole weight against the window, escaped."

Illustrative of the camaraderie of the Cat with human beings, and of the fact that she can, and frequently does, overcome her natural antipathy to water, Prof. Romanes tells the following interesting tale:

"A fisherman, of Portsmouth, England, called 'Robinson Crusoe,' made famous by Mr. Buckland, had a cat called 'Puddles,' which overcame the horror of water, characteristic of his race, and employed his piscatorial talent in the service of his master, who said of him: 'He was the wonderfulest water Cat as ever came out of Portsmouth Harbor, was Puddles, and he used to go out a-fishin' with me every night. On cold nights he would sit on my lap while I was a-fishin', and poke his head out every now and then, or else I would wrap him up in a sail, and make him lay quiet. He'd lay down on me while I was asleep, and if anybody come, he'd swear a good un, and have the face off on 'em if they went to touch me, and he'd never touch a fish, not even a little teeny pout, if you didn't give it to 'im. I was obliged to take him out a-fishin' or else he'd stand an' yowl and marr till I went back and ketched him by the poll and shied him into the boat, and then he was quite happy. When it was fine he used to stick up at the bow of the boat and sit a-watchin' the dogs," meaning dog-fish. "The dogs used to come along by the thousands at a time, and when they was thick all about, he would dive in and fetch 'em out, jammed in his mouth as fast as may be, just as if they was a parcel of rats, and he didn't tremble with the cold half as much as a Newfoundland dog who was used to it. He looked terrible wild about the head when he came out of the water with a dog-fish. I larnt him the water myself. One day, when he was a kitten, I took him down to the sea to wash and brush the fleas out of him, and in a week he could swim after a feather or a cork."