314 M. Dureau on the Ancient History of 



tion of the cat, known among the Greeks from the time of Hero- 

 dotus under the name of «(Ak§o?. 



iElian accurately describes several of the habits and manners 

 of the cat, which he calls ^\A»go5. " The male,"" he says, " is 

 very lascivious; the female a very tender mother. It flees the 

 approach of the male, for the seed of the latter is said to be 

 very hot, and to burn the genital parts of the female like fire. 

 It is for this reason that the male kills the young immediately 

 after they are brought forth, for the desire of having other young 

 ones forces the female to submit to the desires of the male. It 

 is said that cats abhor all kinds of bad smell, and it is for this 

 reason that they dig the earth to bury their excrements in it."' 



This description of ^Elian, like many others of the ancients, 

 contains facts accurately observed, and a false explanation of 

 these facts. 



The female cat does not flee from the male for the reason 

 assigned ; but she avoids him, dreads him, and suffers from 

 him, because the glans of his penis is covered with very sharp 

 horny papillae. This is the cause of the piercing cries of the 

 female during copulation. 



It is neither from cleanliness nor from the dislike of bad 

 smells that cats bury their excrements, but from an instinct of 

 distrust resulting from their wild state, which x-ebels against the 

 feeling of domestication, because the strong smell which their 

 excrements emit might reveal their retreat, the abode and asy- 

 lum of their young, which are to remain concealed. 



A trace of this habit, and of the distrust from which it springs, 

 common to the wolf and other wild animals, still appears in the 

 dog, which, although much more completely domesticated than 

 tlie cat, throws up a little earth upon its excrements. 



If the date of the fables attributed to JEsop might be refer- 

 red to the period at which that fabulist lived, it would be cer- 

 tain that the cat was known at a very ancient epoch in Greece 

 and Asia Minor. Its domesticity, its manners, its character, 

 and the circumstance of its being employed in houses to de- 

 stroy rats and mice, are described in four of these fables, in 

 which the name of a<Aag«s is given to it. 



The fable of the cat in ambush, which, to get at the rats, 

 pretended to be dead, and got itself powdered with meal, ought, 



