A VERY MODERN CAT In the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Snt,—I really must take exception to the statement (quoted by your reviewer) in Miss Georgina Stickland -Gates' book, The Modern Cat : Her Mind and Manners; on our feline friends, that they are "tone deaf."
My tabby Persian enjoys any violin performance, but shows -discrimination. When I first pat on the gramophone record of Beethoven's Quartette in A minor, played by the -Lever String Quartette, he arose from his toilet, hurried up to my sofa, rubbed his head hard against my cheek (his usual expres- sion of gratitude for any special treat) and then settled down to ecstatic enjoyment. Gentle purring, twitching ears, half-closed eyes gazing with adoration at the gramophone, extending and retracting his claws, going softly to the end of the sofa nearest the instrument, and returning to 'me for another rub. It was too funny.
The Adagio bit pleases him especially. He knows, I believe, the place • where this volume of records is kept, and I have seen him sit by it till I have put it on. Each time it is played he repeats his expressions of pleasure. Caruso, Julia Culp, Master Lough, "The whistler and his dog," leave him cold, I regret to say. I think it must be that the Lydian Mode recalls in some faint degree, the amorous strains which rise up to our windows from neighbouring gardens on summer nights.—I am, Sir, &c.
HELEN M. CliirEY.
Muntham, Barrington Road, Torquay.
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