CHAP. XL] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CAT. 367 



pleasurable feelings (also faintly revived) of past catchings, killings, 

 tastings, and eatings. Moreover, when we recollect how common 

 it is for sleeping dogs to show by slight yelps that they are dream- 

 ing, we must surely admit that it is probable that cats can likewise 

 dream. Nor is it impossible that when cosily sitting before a 

 cheerful hearth, enjoying the heat they love so well, they may 

 indulge in waking " day-dreams " also. 



As to memory, every one knows how cats attach themselves to 

 their homes, and how generally they recognize at least one or two 

 of the habitual inmates of their dwelling place. Everyone knows 

 also how a cat, accustomed to have a saucer of milk at tea-time, 

 will habitually run into the drawing-room with the servant carrying 

 the tea-tray. But even the preparatory clatter of the cups and 

 plates downstairs is often enough to arouse its sensibilities, and put 

 it on the qui vive. All this cannot be explained without allowing 

 that the cat-mind can associate complex sets of sensuous impressions 

 of different kinds pleasurable or painful feelings being, as it were, 

 the cement which binds together such complex associations. Once 

 let a cat be much hurt by anyone, and it will soon show how it 

 has associated a painful feeling with his image. 



But cats can so associate sensations and the images of objects in 

 various relations as to draw practical inferences. My friend, 

 Mr. J. J. "Weir, tells me of a cat which, having been chased by boys, 

 ran towards a door, jumped up, put one paw through the handle, 

 and with the other raised the latch, thus causing the door to open 

 and enable it to escape. This action he saw several times repeated. 

 Mr. Harrison Weir has also assured me that he has seen a cat 

 unfasten a latch and then open the door it fastened, by pressing 

 its feet against the door-post. He has also had a cat that knocked 

 at a door with the knocker these acts being untaught, and due only 

 to the cat's spontaneous acts of cognition. I have also heard of a 

 cat which habitually jumped down from a staircase in such a way 

 as in its descent to press with its paws obliquely on the handle 

 of a door and so open it. My friend Captain Noble, of Maresfield, 

 informs me that he has himself known a cat which was in the habit 

 of catching starlings by getting on to a cow's back and waiting till 

 the cow happened to approach the birds, which little suspected 

 what the approaching inoffensive beast bore crouching upon it. 

 He assures me he has himself witnessed this elaborate trick, by 

 means of which the cat managed to catch starlings which otherwise 

 it could never have got near. Many cats will readily learn the 

 signification of certain words, and will answer to their names and 

 come when called. Very strange is the power which cats may show 

 of finding their way home by routes which they have never before 

 traversed. We cannot explain this (as it has been soug;ht to explain 

 the like power in dogs), by the power of smell being the pre- 

 dominate sense, so that a passed succession of smells can be re- 

 traversed in reverse order, as a number of places seen in succession 

 on a journey may be retraversed in reverse order by ourselves. On 



