424 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



houses the doors of which the cats desired to be opened.* 

 My informants tell me that they do not know how these 

 cats, from any process of observation, can have surmised 

 that pulling the wire in an exposed part of its length 

 would have the effect of ringing the bell ; for they can 

 never have observed any one pulling the wires. I can only 

 suggest that in these cases the animals must have ob- 

 served that when the bells were rung the wires moved, and 

 that the doors were afterwards opened ; then a process of 

 inference must have led them to try whether jump- 

 ing at the wires would produce the same effects. But 

 even this, which is the simplest explanation possible, 

 implies powers of observation scarcely less remarkable 

 than the process of reasoning to which they gave rise. 



As further instances corroborating the fact that both 

 these faculties are developed in cats to a wonderful degree, 

 I may add the following. Couch ('Illustrations of 

 Instinct,' p. 196) gives a case within his own knowledge 

 of a cat which, in order to get at milk kept in a locked 

 cupboard, used to unlock the door by seating herself 

 on an adjoining table, and * repeatedly patting on the bow 

 of the key with her paw, when with a slight pull on the 

 door ' she was able to open it ; the lock was old, and the 

 key turned in it ' on a very slight impulse.' 



As a still further instance of the high appreciation of 

 mechanical appliances to which cats attain, I shall quote 

 an extract from a paper by Mr. Otto, which will have been 

 read at the Linnean Society before this work is pub- 



half a dozen times, gaining admittance on each occasion by springing 

 at the knocker. 



Lastly, Dr. W. H. Kesteven writes to * Nature ' (xx., p. 428) of a cat 

 which used to knock at a knocker to gain admittance, in the way 

 already described of so many other cats ; but as showing how much 

 more readily cats acquire this practice than dogs, it is interesting to 

 note that Dr. Kesteven adds that a dog which lived in the same house 

 ascertained that the cat was able to gain admittance by knocking, and 

 yet did not imitate the action, but ' was in the habit of searching for 

 her when he wanted to come in, and either waiting till she was ready 

 to knock at the door, or inducing her to do it to please him.' 



* Consul E. L. Layard gives in Nature (xx., p. 339) a precisely similar 

 case of a cat habitually and without tuition ringing a bell by pulling. 

 at an exposed wire. 



