CAT GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 415 



attention : failing that mode being successful, it would pull one's 

 dress with its claw and then having succeeded in attracting the 

 desired attention, it would walk to the street door and stop 

 there, making the same cry until let out. 



Coming now to cases indicative of reason in cats, Mr. 

 John Martin, writing from St. Clement's, Oxford, informs 

 me : ' I have a cat which a short time ago had kittens, 

 and from some cause or other her milk failed. My house- 

 keeper saw her carrying a piece of bread to them.' The 

 process of reasoning here is obvious. 



Mr. Bidie, writing from the Government Museum of 

 Madras to 'Nature' (vol. xx., p. 96), relates this instance 

 of reasoning in a cat : 



In 1877 I was absent from Madras for two months, and left 

 in my quarters three cats, one of which, an English tabby, was 

 a very gentle and affectionate creature. During my absence the 

 quarters were occupied by two young gentlemen, who delighted 

 in teasing and frightening the cats. About a week before my 

 return the English cat had kittens, which she carefully con- 

 cealed behind bookshelves in the library. On the morning of 

 my return I saw the cat, and patted her as usual, and then left 

 the house for about an hour. On returning to dress I found 

 that the kittens were located in a corner of my dressing-room, 

 where previous broods had been deposited and nursed. On 

 questioning the servant as to how they came there, he at once 

 replied, ' Sir, the old cat taking one by one in her mouth, brought 

 them here.' In other words, the mother had carried them one 

 by one in her mouth from the library to the dressing-room, where 

 they lay quite exposed. I do not think I have heard of a more 

 remarkable instance of reasoning and affectionate confidence in 

 an animal, and I need hardly say that the latter manifestation 

 gave me great pleasure. The train of reasoning seems to have 

 been as follows : ' Now that my master has returned there is no 

 risk of the kittens being injured by the two young savages in 

 the house, so I will take them out for my protector to see and 

 admire, and keep them in the corner in which all my former 

 pets have been nursed in safety.' 



Dr. Bannister writes me from Chicago, of a cat belong- 

 ing to his friend the late Mr. Meek, the palaeontologist, 

 who drew my correspondent's attention to the fact: 



He had fixed upright on h's table a small looking-glass, from 

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