372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Cats appear taciturn in ordinary life, but every one knows that 

 they can upon occasion, and that often, speak forcibly enough. 

 They also have a language for their friends, varied and expressive 

 enough to convey their wants definitely, and make intercourse 

 with them pleasant and lively. Those who know them best may 

 readily say, with John Owen, in the London Academy : 



" Thou art not dumb, my Muff; 

 In those sweet, pleading eyes and earnest look 



Language there is enough 

 To fill with living type a goodly book." 



Montaigne observed, some three hundred years ago, that our 

 beasts have some mean intelligence of their senses, well-nigh in 

 the same measure as we. " They natter us, menace us, and need 

 us ; and we them. It is abundantly evident to us that there is 

 among them a full and entire communication, and that they 

 understand each other/' Dupont de Nemours, who undertook to 

 penetrate the mysteries of animal language, recognized that ani- 

 mals had few wants, but these were strong, and few passions, but 

 imperious, for which they had very marked but limited expres- 

 sions. He thought the cat was more intelligent than the dog, be- 

 cause, being able to climb trees, she had sources of ideas and ex- 

 periences denied to him ; and, having all the vowels of a dog, 

 with six consonants in addition, she had more words. The Abbe" 

 Galiani pretended to have made some curious discoveries respect- 

 ing the language of cats, among which were those that they have 

 more than twenty different inflections, and that " it is really a 

 tongue, for they always employ the same sound to express the 

 same thing." Champfleury professes to have counted sixty-three 

 varieties of mewings, the notation of which, however, he observes, 

 is difficult. The sign and gesture language of the cat is even 

 more copious and expressive than its audible language. As Mr. 

 Owen has it : 



" "What tones unheard, and forms of silent speech, 

 Are given that such as thee 

 The eloquence of dumbness man might teach ! " 



Lindsay enumerates, as among the elements of the non-vocal 

 language of cats, capers or antics, gambols, frolic, and frisking in 

 the kitten ; prostration, crouching, groveling, crawling, cring- 

 ing, and fawning; hiding, flight, sneaking, skulking, slinking, 

 shirking, or shrinking ; rubbing against the bodies of other animals 

 or against hard substances; licking; touching or tapping with the 

 paws ; scratching ; head-shaking, tossing, or rubbing ; and tail- 

 movements, of which there are many. Dr. Turton says that " the 

 cat has a more voluminous and expressive vocabulary than any 

 other brute : the shprt twitter of complacency and affection, the 



