VI ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 185 
lessly returned, alighting on the heads of the cats. 
They caught these little animals, their natural 
prey, and played with them, holding them in 
their paws, and even in their teeth, without doing 
them the slightest injury; they jumped through 
a blazing hoop held up by the trainer, made sur- 
prisingly long leaps over hurdles; turned summer- 
saults, and did other gymnastic exercises on the 
backs of thirty-two chairs placed in a row; 
marched around in time to music like little sol- 
diers, and grouped themselves in many graceful 
and comical attitudes. In all these capers the 
pussies, who live a life of royal comfort and in- 
dulgence, seemed to enjoy themselves as much as 
if the whole affair were a spontaneous frolic; 
but it is noteworthy that these trained cats, while 
tamed to a very unusual degree by their kind, 
patient, and persistent master, must be kept strictly 
captive, since otherwise they would run away 
upon those nocturnal expeditions in which the 
house pet becomes once more the wild cat, taking 
to the roofs and back fences of the city only be- 
cause there is no jungle convenient; and M. Bon- 
netty has lost two or three of his best performers 
by such escapades. 
Their education and training, after all, is only 
skin deep — an acquired polish affecting character 
to only a small degree. This is true of nearly the 
whole menagerie, which lives at best an artificial 
life; and nowadays I rarely go to see it. 
