ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 4 1 



depressing the latch ; but the cat certainly never baw any one, alter 

 having depressed the latch, pushing the door-posts with his legs; ami 

 that this pushing action is due to an originally deliberate intention of 

 opening the door, and not to having accidentally found this action to 

 assist the process, is shown by one of the cases communicated to me ; 

 for in this case, my correspondent says, ' the door was not a loose- 

 fitting one, by any means, and I was surprised that by the force of one 

 hind leg she should have been able to push it open after unlatching 

 it.' Hence we can only conclude that the cats in such cases have 

 a very definite idea as to the mechanical properties of a door : they 

 know that to make it open, even w^hen unlatched, it requires to be 

 fiisJicd — a very different thing from trying to imitate any particular 

 action which they may see to be performed for the same purpose by 

 man. The whole psychological process, therefore, implied by the 

 fact of a cat opening a door in this way is really most complex. 

 First the animal must have observed that the door is opened by the 

 hand grasping the handle and moving the latch. Next she must 

 reason, by ' the logic of feelings ' — ' If a hand can do it, why not a 

 paw?' Then strongly moved by this idea she makes the first trial. 

 The steps which follow have not been obser\-ed, so we cannot cer- 

 tainly say whether she learns by a succession of trials that depression 

 of the thumb-piece constitutes the essential part of the process, or, 

 perhaps more pi-obably, that her initial obser\'ations supplied her with 

 the idea of clicking the thumb-piece. But, however this may be, it 

 is certain that the pushing with the hind feet after depressing the latch 

 must be due to adaptive reasoning unassisted by observation; and 

 only by the concerted action of all her limbs in the performance of a 

 highly complex and most unnatural movement is her final purpose 

 attained." (Animal Intelligence, pp. 420-433.) 



A page or two later we find a less ponderous account of a 

 cat's success in turning aside a button and so opening a window : 



" At Parara, the residence of Parker Bowman, Esq., a full-grown 

 cat was one day accidentally locked up in a room without any other 

 outlet than a small window, moving on hinges, and kept shut by 

 means of a swivel. Not long afterwards the window was found open 

 and the cat gone. This having happened several times, it was 

 at last found that the cat jumped upon the window-sill, placed her 

 fore-paws as high as she could reach against the side, deliberately 

 reached with one over to the swivel, moved it from its horizontal to 

 a vertical position, and then, leaning with her whole weight against 



