66 NATURAL HISTORY. 



with infinitely greater sensibility. Imagine a blind man with not one stick, but a couple of dozen, of 

 exquisite fineness, and these not held in his hand, but embedded in his skin, so that his nerves come 

 into direct contact with them instead of having a layer of skin between, and some notion may be 

 formed of the way in which a Cat uses its whiskers. 



But the Cat in its night walks has a further advantage over the blind man, namely, that except 

 on the very darkest nights, it is not entirely deprived of the power of sight, for, as we have already 

 mentioned, the pupil is so constructed that in the dark it can be dilated, so as to catch every 

 available ray of light, and, moreover, the tapetum, or brilliant lining of the eyeball, reflects and 

 magnifies the straggling beams, and so enables the Cat, if not actually to " see in the dark," as is 

 sometimes stated, at least to distinguish objects in an amount of light so small as to be inappreciable 

 to our duller vision. 



As we have already mentioned, the Domestic Cat is less strictly carnivorous than the wild Felidce : 

 still it prefers meat or milk to anything else, and is by no means a miscellaneous feeder, like the Dog. 

 In the matter of diet, Gilbert White remarks* "There is a propensity belonging to common 

 house Cats that is very remarkable. I mean their violent fondness for fish, which appears to be 

 their most favourite food; and yet Nature in this instance seems to have implanted in them 

 an appetite that, unassisted, they know not how to gratify; for, of all quadrupeds, Cats are the 

 least disposed towards water, and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much 

 less to plunge in that element." Mr. White does not seem to have known of the habits of the 

 Jaguar. 



A curious instance of the selection of their food by Cats and Dogs is given by the same author : 

 " As my neighbour was housing a rick, he observed that his Dogs devoured all the little red 

 Mice that they could catch, but rejected the common Mice ; and that his Cats ate the common Mice, 

 refusing the red." 



This may be partly accounted for by the fact that the little Harvest Mouse has scarcely any 

 trace of the odour which makes the domestic kind disagreeable, and which odour is not disliked, or 

 perhaps is hardly perceived, by the Cat. Both Dogs and Cats, when the corn-ricks are being 

 housed for threshing, will go on helping the farmer and his men for hours, killing Mice by 

 hundreds and by thousands long after they have been satiated by eating them. These Mouse battues 

 illustrate the intelligence of the Cat as well as of the Dog, in a quick understanding of what relates 

 to their own interest ; for they know immediately what the removal of the thatch from the rick 

 means, and, as it were, scent their prey before it is unearthed. Yet the food-treasures in these ricks 

 are not unknown to the Cats, who night by night for months, pei'haps, have caught and regaled them- 

 selves upon stragglers from the swarm. 



But although of most domestic Cats it may be said, 



" Rats and Mice, and such small deer, 

 Have been Tom's food for many a year," 



yet, in districts that have the game well " preserved," this sort of diet is often exchanged for that of 

 nobler prey, and the tame Cat will stray for months from the homesteads for young Rabbits, Leverets, 

 and the Partridge covey. This poaching is almost sure to end in death, as these Cats are closely 

 watched by the keepers. 



One curious thing about these poaching habits is that they run in families. As Mr. Darwin 

 says, one Cat " naturally takes to catching Rats, and another Mice, and these tendencies are known to 

 be inherited. One Cat, according to Mr. St. John, always brought home game birds, another Hares 

 or Rabbits, and another hunted on marshy ground, and almost nightly caught Woodcocks or Snipes." 



A Cat who has once taken to habits like these soon loses her taste for human society and a 

 comfortable fireside, and becomes quite wild and almost its untamable as one of the actually feral 

 species. Many years ago, in a village where we were then living, a female half-wild Cat made furtive 

 visits to an old and extensive farmstead for the sake of the dove-cot Pigeons, and for the safer rearing 

 of her young. These she would deposit, not in-doors, like our tame, pet Cats, but generally in the 

 fagot-stack, and once in a corner of the thick house-thatch, in which was a labyrinth of passages made 



* " Natural History of Selborne." 



