104 t>KEAMS AND DELUSIONS. 



by seeing, a vision of an old wrinkled hag. In both, 

 terror was developed, though the mode in which expression 

 was given to it differed. The lady became the victim of 

 a helpless fascination, of paralysis of mobility and speech, 

 while the cat, on the contrary, made frantic efforts at escape. 

 Probably in both cases if there be any truth in the in- 

 cident at all, and Wood apparently believes in its authenticity, 

 in the perfect credibility of his informant, the lady herself 

 to whom the incident occurred we have to do with a dream 

 of the sleeping, or half-sleeping state; for we are told that 

 the event happened about bed- time, while both mistress and 

 pet were half-asleep before a comfortable fire. 



If such a case of ' spiritualism ' is to be explained in so 

 simple a way, it is obvious, however, that we cannot accept 

 the lady's inference that her cat saw the same hag that 

 terrified herself. The lady and the cat were coincidently 

 half-sleeping, half-awake : that is described as a fact. And 

 the lady describes her vision as another fact. But when 

 she asserts that the cat saw, or must have seen, the same 

 vision, we have only to deal with her inference and her own 

 interpretation of the cat's behaviour, which admits of ex- 

 planation in other ways. For instance, it is quite as likely 

 that the cat was dreaming as the mistress, that its dreams 

 were of a horrific kind, and that the mental impression was 

 sufficiently intense and prolonged to lead to violent efforts 

 at escape from some fancied horrific object. 



Unfortunately, in other animals, as in man, visual de- 

 lusions, like dreams in general, appear more generally to be 

 of a terrifying, or pain-giving, than of a pleasurable kind. 



Spectral delusions occur in several forms of insanity, sym- 

 pathetic or other, among the lower animals ; for instance, in 

 that of rabies in the dog, of sturdy in the sheep, and of sun- 

 stroke in the ape. Of a rabietic dog Fleming writes : ' It 

 appeared as if it was haunted by some horrid phantoms. . . . 

 At times it would seem to be watching the movements of 

 something on the floor, and would dart suddenly forward 

 and bite at the vacant air as if pursuing something against 

 which it had an enmity.' 



This snapping at imaginary foes is supposed by certain 



