230 



A STUDY OF EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION IN 

 FELIS PARDUS. 



BY 



R. W. G. Kingston, I. M. S. 

 (With Plates A and B.) 



As we ascend the animal scale from that stage at which the 

 nervous system has become so concentrated and elaborated as to 

 be capable of weaving the external bodily stimuli into an emotion- 

 ary sensation, we find that the corporal changes by which that 

 emotion is made manifest have become more differentiated and 

 more complex. Although when the surroundings are unfavour- 

 able or possibly directly dangerous, the tiny amoeba may check its 

 creeping motion, the coelenterate may retract its tentacles, the 

 mollusc may firmly close its shell or the crustacean hastily scramble 

 away, yet such movements must be considered as of direct service 

 to the creature, as endeavours on its part to shield the body from 

 the source of danger and not as external evidence that any emotion, 

 such as fear of the danger or anger towards the object producing 

 the danger, has been experienced by those minute atoms of living 

 tissue which go to compose its nervous system. 



But when we consider those animals higher in the scale of 

 Nature and which, from the greater development of their nervous 

 apparatus, might be expected to possess mental faculties higher 

 than those necessary to protect them from some immediate danger ; 

 we find that their internal emotions are expressed in such a man- 

 ner as to make it difficult for us to determine what actual service 

 those expressions may really be. Thus that inoffensive and 

 harmless little snake the Buff-striped Keelback, when irritated, is 

 described as erecting itself, flattening its forebody and distending 

 itself until it brings into view its blue or vermilion colourations. 

 The painted snipe, when slightly alarmed, is said to raise the wing 

 furthest from the intruder ; if pressed this wing is fully expanded, 

 while in desperation the bird faces its adversary with both wings 

 and tail spread so that their beautiful spotted markings are fully 

 shown. Everyone has seen the domestic hen cackling with pride 

 over the egg which it has laid or the domestic, cock crowing with 

 triumph over his defeated antagonist, yet few would attempt to 

 explain why such sounds should have been evolved or what benefit 

 they are to the creatures which make them or would prefer to give 

 any more satisfactory explanation than that they are the outward 

 manifestations of the internal emotions which at that moment 

 excite the animal. 



But in mammals the outward expression of emotional disturb- 

 ances has reached a high pitch of differentiation. The horse forcibly 



