Benevolence of Cats. 61 
when Tom would not cross the threshold. One day he jumped 
on the window-sill, within arm’s length of my dinner-table, 
and mewed to be let in. I took up the hat by way of. experi- 
ment, to ascertain whether he was conscious of the protection 
afforded by the glass, and struck at him with the dreaded object 
At the first blow he nearly fell off the window-sill with sud- 
den fright, but recovering himself maintained his ground, while 
eyeing the hat suspiciously every time it touched the glass. 
There seems to be no doubt that the character of the glass 
had become established in his mind, and it at once occurred to 
him that its interposition was a sufficient protection. 
This example appears quite insignificant beside one given 
by a correspondent of Nature, who described the action 
of a cat, which, if it were accurately observed, and recorded 
without the help of imagination, would constitute the most 
remarkable instance we can well conceive in the annals of 
animal psychology. It was the custom of the family to strew 
crumbs after breakfast before the dining room windows, for 
the benefit of the small birds, and itseems the house cat had 
once dashed out of a hiding place and caught one of them 
while feeding. Pussy, on a subsequent occasion, was seen to 
carry pieces of bread and strew them on the ground at a spot 
near a bush, where she concealed herself in the hope of inducing 
the birds to come within range of her spring, with what success 
was not related. In recording such a remarkable example of the 
exercise of reason, the “personal equation” of the narrator 
must be taken into account, and one would hesitate to put 
much faith in the observer unless the absence of all suspicion 
of an imaginative temperament could be clearly established. 
The cat may simply have carried the pieces of food out with a 
view to eating them, and not finding them to her taste, may 
have dropped them and retired to rest under the bush. If this 
had been afrequent habit, and if the lure had proved success- 
ful, we should be warranted in inferring intention, but it is 
scarcely justifiable to assume this from one occurrence, which 
” 
leaves so wide an opening for accident. 
