THE PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG ANIMALS 225 



is one reason why parasites are so injurious to very 

 young animals. 



As in the case of the dog, a young kitten, even on 

 the day of its birth, will be slow to crawl off a surface 

 as a table. These animals have what amounts to a 

 sense of support, the absence of which causes them 

 uneasy sensations. They turn away from the space 

 beyond their support because it does not afford the 

 essential sensation, and as I have remarked in my first 

 paper on the dog, this seems to me as fundamental as 

 anything that is to be found in animal psychology. 



In the cat, as in the dog, the winking reflex is slowly 

 developed, and is never so marked as in man. A cat 

 can look at one much more steadily than a dog, and for 

 a longer time, a fact which has its own psychical 

 significance. 



The cat knows no shyness or modesty in the sense in 

 which a dog, especially a pure-bred dog, experiences 

 such a feeling. 



In one particular the cat is greatly in advance of the 

 dog at the corresponding period, and also finally, viz. 

 in co-ordination of voluntary movements. 



Though according to my notes, the kitten did not 

 begin to use the limbs in scratching (quite a complicated 

 movement for a young animal) much before the puppy, 

 if at all, still progress, even in this direction, was much 

 more rapid in the cat. I have taken care to give a very 

 complete account of the movements (actions) of the 

 kitten, so that there might be available a full history 

 of the development of these movements in an animal 

 in which they finally reach extraordinary perfection. 



There is no comparison between a puppy's range of 

 co-ordinated movements at three months, and those of 

 a kitten of the same age. 



That in the course of evolution the possession of sharp 

 nails has had much to do with this, 1 feel satisfied. 



p 



