EARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



165 



the purchaser's advantage, he also buys and sells all 

 sorts of curiosities. Admission to the Museum 61/. 

 each." Written by a lad} 7 on seeing Hall's Grand 

 Zoonecrophylagium. (Here follows some verses too 

 long to quote.) S. Bailey, printer; 50, Bishopsgate 

 AMthin (added in ink, March 1S00). Can any reader 

 tell us something about Mr. T. Hall and his singing- 

 birds, in this what must have been a wonderful 

 Zoonecrophylagium ? — W. E. Harper. 



Intelligence OF A Cat. — Sixteen or seventeen 

 years ago, I had a very intelligent tom-cat. When 

 out at night, he used to knock by lifting up the 

 splash-board of the hall-door, and letting it fall ; 

 after knocking a couple of times, he would wait a 

 reasonable time to allow the door to be answered, 

 and if it was not he would knock again. He taught 

 this trick to our other cat also. I have seen him try 

 to open a locked cupboard by springing at the key, 

 and throwing his weight so as to turn it ; he did turn 

 it to some extent, but not enough to open the lock. 

 He rarely stole anything in our house, but was a 

 daring robber from the neighbours, and he generally 

 brought his booty to me. On one occasion he 

 brought me a half-cooked chop, quite hot, which 

 looked as though it had been taken from the frying- 

 pan ; but as he was not burned at all, I can hardly 

 believe that possible. At that time I was reading 

 hard, and used to take a glass of milk with some 

 bread for my supper ; if I had occasion to leave the 

 room I used to put my bread and milk in his charge ; 

 not only would he not touch it himself, but he would 

 not allow the other cat to do so ; and on my return, 

 if I indicated with my thumb on the outside of the 

 glass, how much he might drink, he would drink 

 down to my mark, and then leave off. I could 

 mention many more things about him, similar to 

 these, but there is nothing specially remarkable 

 about them ; they evince intelligence, but that intelli- 

 gence is directed to objects ordinarily coming within 

 the scope of a cat's mind ; but one circumstance 

 seems to me remarkable, and difficult to account for. 

 I was once playing chess with a friend ; we were 

 using small bone men, red and white, and I had 

 white. The cat was sitting on the table beside the 

 <:hess-board, and was watching the game very 

 intently ; once when it was my turn to move, I 

 pondered for some time ; the cat suddenly advanced 

 one of my pawns a square with his paw, removed one 

 of my adversary's men from the board with his teeth, 

 dropped it along with the captured men, and finally, 

 seized the end of my nose with his teeth very gently, 

 as though to call my attention to what he had done. 

 As might be expected, the move made by the cat, 

 although possible, was a very bad one ; but it seems 

 to me strange that a cat should show any interest at 

 all in the subject, and his action seems to show that 

 he had observed with sufficient attention to notice 

 the alternation of moves, the fact that my men 

 were white and my adversary's red, that a move of 

 a man of one colour was frequently followed by the 

 removal of a man of another colour, and that the 

 division of the board into squares regulated the 

 moves (because he advanced the pawn exactly one 

 square). The idea which occurred to me at the time 

 was that the cat was puzzled by the various shapes 

 and different moves of the men, and believed he had 

 found a uniformity in the moves of the pawns, ac- 

 cordingly when he got an opportunity he moved one 

 in the way which he believed to be correct, and 

 then drew my attention to see if it was so. But on 

 later consideration I saw that the facts did not 

 amount to proof of this. The move was the ordinary 

 -one, not the capturing move of the pawn, and the 



piece removed had no connection other than being 

 near it, with the pawn moved.— J. R. Holt. 



Strange Conduct of Cats and Hens.— In a 

 loft, a few days ago, I had two hens sitting upon 

 their eggs ; also a cat nursing her kitten a few days 

 old in an open box (she had had four, the others 

 being taken from her). One of the hens had started 

 to bring out her birds with the usual chirping and 

 cheeping— this was too much for her neighbour 

 whose eggs had given no signs. She left her nest 

 and attacked puss in all her fury and frightened her 

 down the ladder, returned to the kitten, adopted it 

 as her own, chucking and nestling it with all the 

 fondness of a mother. By-and-by the cat was seen 

 making for the loft accompanied by her old mother 

 (a much larger and fiercer cat than herself). Then a 

 great uproar was heard, and, on my appearance, the 

 two cats had got possession of the box and kitten, 

 and were defending themselves from the attacks of the 

 enraged hen. Getting a hold of her, she was put 

 upon her own eggs and a chick taken from her 

 neighbour's brood put under her, she quietened down. 

 After this both hens with their eggs and chicks were 

 removed to an outhouse, to be their abode for a time. 

 Yesterday the girl whose duty it was to look after 

 them, discovered one of the chicks wanting, which 

 was afterwards discovered in the box in the loft ; the 

 cat fondling aud nursing it beside her kitten. To 

 take it there she must have leaped five feet to an 

 aperture in the outhouse, descending as far, carrying 

 it some distance and taking it up the ladder ; all of 

 which she accomplished without injuring the chick 

 in the slightest.— .P. IV., Ayrshire. 



The Murder of a Spider by Ants.— On Whit 

 Monday I witnessed a strange and curious sight : 

 The murder of a spider by ants. I was scanning 

 a small bed in the garden when presently here trots 

 across it an uncommonly large and sluggish spider 

 pursued by a few ants. He had probably trespassed on 

 their domain and done some damage to their passages 

 in passing over. However, they soon overcame him, 

 and began to attack him ferociously. Some would 

 cling tenaciouly to his limbs, and a number would 

 overrun and bite him in his bulky abdomen, while a 

 few, more daring than the rest, attacked him in the 

 head. Now and again they tried to arrest his pro- 

 gress by clinging fast to the end of his limbs by their 

 jaws and planting their own, with all energy, in the 

 ground. By and by the emmetic army grew stronger 

 by fresh arrivals, and they completely overhauled 

 their victim more than once ; while in this position 

 he would, by dint of muscular strength, heave his 

 legs in the air like the jib of a crane, carrying 

 with them a load of ants. To berid himself of them 

 in this manner proved an utter failure, they seemed 

 to enjoy such aerial rides. Still adhering by their 

 jaws they would at whiles ply their limbs with such 

 rapidity as to become quite invisible. This, perhaps, 

 was a measure of their anger. At last the poor spider 

 got entangled in a piece of waste, and here he was 

 held down much like Gulliver by the Lilliputians, and, 

 more unfortunately, slain. — G. Rees, Aberystwyth. 



We have received from Mr. F. L. Dawes No. 19 

 of " Bibliotheca Zoologica " (Berlin) ; also Messrs. 

 Wesley and Son's No. 112 Catalogue of his "Natural 

 History and Scientific Book Circular," advertising 

 important works on Geology. 



Climbing Hermit-Crabs. — I have never heard 

 of hermit-crabs climbing bushes, but a few days ago 

 I was walking along one of the valleys here when my 



