August 1, 1888.] 



♦ KNO>ArLEDGE ♦ 



229 



you love me ? " and " Ave you a good little Kitty 1 " were 

 uniformly answered bj' an energetic wave of her caudal 

 appendage. Her wants from tlie first she spontaneously 

 made known by a pull at my wife's dress, or by a peculiar 

 mew which has a wonderful likeness to human spesch. 

 From her first domestication she has slept in our chamber, 

 and if now and then shut out of the house when it was 

 locked up for the night, she would climb upon the ver.uidah 

 which runs along the front of our summer residence and tap 

 upon our window for admission. Sometimes she did this at 

 midnight, and we, being fiist asleep, would fail to respond 

 very promptly to her summons. In this event she would, 

 on being let in, stamp her foot upon the floor and scold 

 away at us for fully five minutes in a peculiar tone, a kind 

 of mutter that was both rapid and decided. 



Among other things which my wife at this time taught 

 the feline ladj' was to turn somersaults upon the floor, to 

 play at hide-and-go-seek, and to run in a hurdle-race around 

 a large room. This last used to come off in the library, the 

 hurdles being piles of books placed at irregular intervals, 

 and Kitty vaulting over them in a race around the apart- 

 ment. At first she was lured into this performance by a 

 string drawn rapidly across the book-piles, but soon my wife 

 was able to omit this incitement, and get Kitty into the 

 race by merely giving her the word at starting. She 

 enjoyed the performance greatly, and invariably asked for it 

 every evening after supi)'er until she became a mother and 

 engrossed in the duties of maternity. 



She was about a year old when this happened, and it has 

 seemed to develop her nature wonderfully. Ever since she 

 has given clear and striking proofs of that ability to com- 

 bine means with ends and that power of deducing one result 

 from another which we term " reason." Her memory also has 

 gi'own remarkably clear and strong, as a little incident will 

 illustrate. Some ladies whom she had not seen for a whole 

 year called upon us one day during last summer, and she at 

 once greeted them with eveiy sign of recognition. The 

 hurdle-races had been for a long time discontinued, but on 

 our visitors expressing a desire to again witness the per- 

 formance, we ranged the books around the room, and, my 

 wife giving the word, Kitty at once vaulted over them with 

 all her old agility. She had made two or three circuits of 

 the apartment, when she suddenly paused as if a new idea 

 had just struck her. Her four kittens, now about four 

 months old, were in the room, and they had paused in their 

 play to witness the performance ; and now Kitty called 

 them to her, and addressed them in an energetic manner. 

 At first they did not seem to com])rehend what she wanted, 

 but, taking her idea, my wife produced a string, and calling 

 " Little kitties," proceeded to draw it across the books in the 

 old manner. Instantly the kittens were after the string, 

 and Kitty was after the kittens, going round the room in 

 flying leaps, and urging them forward with cries of 

 encouragement. Once in a while one of the little fellows 

 would dodge the books, or fall out of line, and then his 

 mother would pause in her flight, and, cuffing his ears, force 

 him again into the race. Soon my wife withdrew the string, 

 and then they went on without it — five cats chasing one 

 another in a hurdle-race around the room, while we and our 

 guests were shouting with laughter. Often afterward the 

 performance was repeated, and always at its close both the 

 cjits and the kittens would come to us for some mark of our 

 approval. 



Kitty has exhibited in a high degree the wonderful 

 instinct which guides the cat in training her young, but 

 she has al.so shown in their education an adaptation of means 

 to ends which, with neither cats nor men, is instinctive. 

 For instance, she would bring live mice and squirrels into 

 the kitchen, and, setting them free, would set her kittens 



to hunting the creatures. This was instinct, but reason 

 came in when the mouse or the squirrel got away, and hid 

 behind some article of furniture, where neither cat nor 

 kittens could get at it. Then Kitty would ask my wife or 

 the servant to remove the article ; but if it happened to be 

 too heavy for a woman's strength — and it usually was a 

 large cupboard — she would come direetlj' to my " den" in 

 a remote part of the house, and insist upon my going at 

 once to the rescue. 



As they grew older Kitty's progeny took to climbing, and 

 occasionally one of tliem would push himself upon an upper 

 branch of some t;ill tree, whence it dared not come down, 

 and where Kitty knew she could not veutui-e her own 

 weight in safety. On such occasions she would rush into 

 the house and appeal to my wife, who would call our 

 farmer's boy, and send him up the tree to rescue the en- 

 dangered kitten. Once on a time my wife could not be 

 found, and, after searching for her in vain, Kitty went her- 

 self to the barn, called the boy, and led him to the tree up 

 which was the venturesome kitten. The little fellows 

 thought it rare fun to hide away in the neai'-by woods 

 where their mother could not find them. To her cries for 

 them at such times they would pay no sort of attention ; 

 but they never heard my wife call " Little kitties — come 

 home, little kitties" but they came trooping toward the 

 house as fast as their little legs could carry them. Observ- 

 ing this, Kitty never failed to ask her aid in such circum- 

 stances. On one occasion all four of the kittens had dis- 

 appeared, and the cat and her mistress had for a consideralile 

 time searched for them without success in the neighbouring 

 bushes and undergrowth, when suddenly Kitty sprang up 

 a tall pine to its very top, whence she could see all the 

 surrounding woods. In a few moments she was down again, 

 and then, making to my wife a peculiar gesture of the head 

 by which she indicates that she desires to be followed, she 

 led her to a considerable distance in a direction never before 

 taken by the kittens, and there, perched upon the top rail 

 of the farm fence, were the four runaways. 



Upon anotiier occasion, when the servant was absent 

 from the kitchen and my wife was upstairs in the most 

 remote part of the house, Kitty came bounding up to her, 

 with an urgent demand to be followed. She led her directly 

 to the kitchen, and there was a strange m^iu who had no 

 business on the premises. A hke intelligence Kitty showed 

 one dark and stormy night, when we had inadvertently 

 gone to bed leaving her out of doors. About midnight she 

 came to my wife's bed, woke her up and beckoned her to 

 follow. She led her down to the dining-room, where the 

 glass door, leading out upon the verandah, stood wide open. 

 Observing this, she had entered by tliat way, in steady of 

 coming, as usual, to our chamber window, and, knowing 

 that the door should not be left open, she gave my wife this 

 notice before retiring to her nightly quarters. And this 

 reminds me that though Kitty often makes demands upon 

 me in the daytime, she never wakes me at night, however 

 great may seem to her the emergency, and this she does 

 without having the least instruction on the subject. Making 

 not the slightest noise, she comes to my wife's side and rouses 

 her by springing liylitly upon the bed and gently stroking 

 her face, but she lets me rest'iu quiet. Siie has the good 

 sense to know that a man who works with brain or hand all 

 day should be left at night to enjoy unbroken slumber. I 

 could relate numerous instances similar to the foregoing, but 

 I have now space for only a .sad catastrophe that befell Kitty 

 and her little family. 



The four kittens had grown to be nearly as large as their 

 mother, when Kitty had another litter — three little fellows. 

 Soon afterwards a distemper appeared which swept away 

 nearly all the cats in the neighliuurhood, and one after 



