644 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



concave inner surface of the whole and of each part may typify tht 

 mental, the psychical, the psychological, the subjective. 



20. It must be kept clearly in view that the mental aspect in 

 animal life is not restricted to control of activities, image-formini: 

 ideation and inference; it may realise itself abundantly in feelings, 

 in concrete purposes, in music and artistry. 



CONCLUSION : THE WAYS OF THE CAT 



In less formal synthetic conclusion, it may be useful to pass from 

 the general to the particular and to consider the behaviour of an 

 animal familiar to all— the cat. In a scientific appreciation of an 

 animal's ways, it is best to begin with the senses; and in some respects 

 the cat is well-endowed. Gautier tells a delightful storj' of Madame 

 Theophile's encounter with a green parrot. "The cat, after spending 

 some moments in silent contemplation of the bird, decided that 

 what she saw was a green chicken, and reasoned further that even 

 if green, the chicken should be good to eat. As she sprang at him, 

 the parrot cried out suddenly, "Have you had your breakfast?" 

 The cat fell back; her thoughts were apparent: "This is not a bird; 

 it speaks; it is a gentleman." Without failing to appreciate Gautier's 

 story, we are scientifically bound to puncture it, since all the experi- 

 mental evidence points to the conclusion that the cat is colour- 

 blind. It can distinguish different degrees of brightness, but it lives 

 in a grey world. Its very marked power of expanding and contracting 

 the pupil of the eye may be correlated with the nocturnal hunting, 

 when it is important to make the most of the scanty rays. The 

 tactiUty of the vibrissae is also an aid to walking effectively in 

 darkness. Not much has been proved in regard to the cat's sense 

 of smell, but it is probably acute. As to hearing, cats are able to 

 discriminate between differences in sound, and can learn in forty- 

 five or fifty lessons to associate a particular vocal signal with a 

 particular reaction. Yet there is no convincing evidence that they 

 can distinguish differences in pitch. Their auditory world is Hke that 

 of a tone-deaf individual. 



Awaiting further investigation is the "homing" exhibited by somr 

 cats; for experiments show that they can return from a place thre( 

 miles off or so, to which they were carried under conditions excluding 

 intimations from sight, hearing, and smell. They seem usually to 

 take many hours to return, and this suggests that they have to make 

 many tentatives. This probably holds for returns from long distances, 

 for example, from Ayrshire to Fife; but no adequate experiments 

 have been made with these "orientations from a distance", if such 

 they are. 



Another well-known capacity, that of falling on their feet, has 



