CAT AND DOG LIFE.
IT is time that the controversy concerning the superiority of cat or dog should be discussed on some more general ground than that of British feeling or human egotism. The case is prejudged, if we are to weigh the cat's merits on practical grounds, for the cat is essentially dramatic ; or if we are to estimate her character from the Western point of view, for the cat is an Oriental ; or finally, if we are to consider the moral qualities of the cat solely in relation to the desires of the human being. In all such cases the vulgar estimate of the cat would be the true one, and according to this vulgar estimate the cat
a domestic, comfortable animal, usually found curled up like an ammonite; essentially selfish, essentially cruel, and apart from these two drawbacks, essentially feminine. " The cat is selfish and the dog is faithful." This sums up a judgment founded on wilful denseness and gross egotism. In respect to what is the dog faithful and the cat selfish ? The judg- ment rests on this, that the human being is a very little portion of the cat's world, but is the all-absorbing object of the dog. Here plainly Greek meets Greek, and we had better let the accusation of egotism alone.
But apart from egotism, the above summary of the cat's nature and habits is about as true as the following summary of the sportsman's nature and habit from the cat's point of view :—" The sportsman is a quiet and lazy creature, singu- larly domestic, fond of armchairs and smoking. He eats less often, but more largely than other men. The only thing that interferes with his domesticity is his tendency to absent himself from the house for hours together, missing thus his proper meal times, and driven by a madness which is quite foreign to his nature. If you come upon him at such times be is engaged in a prosaic kind of wholesale slaughter ; he dis- plays little strategy, no agility in this pursuit, neither runs nor pounces, but kills his game at a distance through an un- pleasant, noisy instrument. The sportsman, too, is absolutely dangerous to life at such a time, and we have known cats fall victims to his madness, whereas if you meet him at ordinary times be is quiet and tame, both to birds and animals, can be safely left in the room with the kittens, and has never been known to kill a caged bird. The keeper is a very dangerous sort of sportsman, and must be regarded as radically unsafe. The difference is the same as that between the rogue elephant and the elephant of uncertain temper.' The fact is that the usual judgment of cats rests on a total misapprehension of the scope of a cat's life. The cat is above all things a dramatist ; its life is an endless romance. The drama is played out on quite another stage than our own, and we only enter into it as subordinate characters, as stage managers, or rather stage carpenters. We realise this with kittens ; we see that the greater part of their lives, the sounds and sights of it, are material for a drama half consciously played. But our mistake comes later. When the kitten passes partly out of our ken, and appears before us as a serious cat with the weight of the world on its shoulders, we believe that the romance has ceased. Not so; it has only gone deeper; the stage has not disappeared, but grown wide beyond our view ; and if the cat no longer plays before our eyes it is probably on account of our failing sympathy. It is on the realisation of this basis of the cat's life that a true judgment of its qualities depends.
It is commonly said that cats are devoted to places and not to persons. We have never found this true, bat if it is the case it not improbably results from the fact that many people are devoted to kittens but not to cats. Then the cat's devotion is transferred to the scene of her romances, the corners where she has lain in ambush, the place where she has secretly viewed the movements of her foe or of her prey, the place where she has experienced the surprising and absorb- ing joys of her kittens. The truth is that the scope of a cat's emotion and experiences too nearly resembles our own. We prefer the devotee. It is thus this general scope of life that chiefly differs between different races of animals. The moral qualities differ from ;ndividual to individual.
Are cats selfish ? The black Persian, Ita,' was wholly selfish and self-absorbed, owing, probably, to unhappy family relations when he was young. But Persia' and Mentn ' were not selfish. Again and again they have been left in a room with a plate of food, and not cared to eat because they were alone. But if one came in, there was an affectionate greeting, a short display of emotion, and then the cat went with a good appetite to the plate. A Manx cat and a York- shire terrier lived in the same house. The terrier was seen to go to the cat, and taking out of her month the meat she was eating, he ate it himself. How does selfishness stand here? No one accuses the Welsh collie, Taffy," of selfishness, for he is so enthusiastic, so straightforward, so genial; but if 'Taffy' and his dinner were left alone in the room we should not expect him to stand on ceremony.
Temper differs as much from individual to individual. 'Pa' had a bad temper ; he did not intend to allow liberties, and he gave little warning of his intention ; but cowardice made him apparently good - tempered towards other animals.
Meat .' had the occasional irritability of a nervous tempera. ment, whether animal or human. ' Perais ' was a very fiend to other animals, but had an utterly sweet and grateful temper towards human beings, unless jealousy intervened. But dogs are more frequently misjudged in respect of temper than cats. The nervous excitability of the collie is often mistaken for bad temper. We have known a bad-tempered collie, but the clergyman who owned it did not keep it long, for parochial organisation ran less smoothly when the congrega- tion of the mission chapel was kept at bay on a windy night We have spoken of moral qualities, but there is a rea difference between the conscience of cat and dog, founded on the fundamental difference already mentioned. The con science in either case we take to be essentially the recognition of a standard higher than that of personal desire, and some- times antagonistic to it. The cat gives evidence of such a standard when she brings a cat friend to share her dinner, when she lets a dog friend take the food out of her month ; and in the educative course of conduct observed towards her kittens, even when the first immediate desires of motherhood are passing. If the sense of duty in the animal, or in the human being, is originally based on the " sanctions " of pain and pleasure, the true quality of the motive is clear, even at a low stage of its evolution.
The dog's conscience takes a somewhat higher rank than the cat's, for the chief part of his moral code he accepts as a law given by a higher being. He shows a desire for mord I approbation when he has behaved well; be is depressed by moral disapprobation quite apart from the fear of the whip. But a cat defies the external code if it dare, and covets admiration rather than moral approbation.
./Esthetic sensitiveness seems more developed in the cat than in the dog. The keenness of a dog's intelligence com- bined with the inferiority of nature that lies behind it makes the employment of the senses almost entirely utilitarian. Among aesthetic sensibilities the enjoyment of music is the keenest and most common, and the perception of colour perhaps the rarest. Neither the cat nor the dog can compare of course in musical susceptibility with the parrot, who is shaken by storms of emotion ; but we have known a cat show very marked pleasure in a whistled tone. It is common to find dogs who " sing " following, to some rough extent, high or low notes of music, bat one doubts if such imitation is conscious, or based at all on enjoyment. The dog appears depressed with lowered head and tail, or uncomfortably excited, and a kind of thrill pre- cedes the sounds. On the other hand, both cats and dogs appear to be unconscious of the sounds they utter until experience or definite teaching has shown them the result. To make a dog utter sounds voluntarily is often very difficult, and those who can " sing " to order seem to exercise a painful tension of will. Again, excitement will strangulate the voice of a dog, like that of a eby girl at a singing lesson, so that his strongest impulse to appeal is mute. So, too, cats often silently open their mouths when they demand food. Such facts seem to point to the conclusion that the voice is not purposely produced, and that though sounds may give warning or guidance to other animals, the utterance is
dependent on physical impulse. When the impulse is imitative it may depend ultimately on such sensation as is felt by some people in the throat when a Bourdon stop is on the organ, and by most people when they hear, for instance, the cheering of a large crowd. If this is so we are on the wrong tack in comparing the sounds of animals, varied and specified though they are, to language ; and should rather compare them to weeping and laughter, which provoke an imitative response, or even to the sounds of a man who has early become dumb through deafness. For in such cases it isnot purpose but efficient cause that must be the subject of inquiry.
With regard to colour both cats and dogs appear to have little esthetic perception. We have heard of a dog appearing to prefer scarlet to blue, but it is difficult to eliminate the effect of association in dealing with a single instance. Cats, however, seem to show a definite esthetic perception of texture,—esthetic, for it is not ordinary bodily comfort which rules. They may like to sleep on velvet, but they revel, waking, in the feeling of crackling paper, or texture of stiff silks ; and there is a well-authenticated story of a cat which goes into the garden to lick the ender sides of foxglove-leaves, and cannot be kept from trying with his tongue the texture of flannelette. But the keenest :esthetic pleasure for a cat lies in the region of smell. The dog uses smell merely as a medium of information, but the cat revels in it. She will linger near a tree-trunk, smelling each separate aromatic leaf, for the pure pleasure of it, not, like a dog, to trace friend, foe, or prey. If the window of a close room is opened the cat leans out, smelling the air ; new dresses are smelt, partly perhaps for future recognition, but also apparently for pleasure. A strong smell, above all a spirituous smell, is not only disagree. able but abiolutely painful. Lavender water may please a tiger, but it will put a cat to flight.
This apparent power of msthetic enjoyment in the cat is counterbalanced in the dog by a quality we are wont to rank highly, yet not without a haunting misgiving. The dog has a rudimentary sense of humour. It is the commonest thing in the world to see a petted dog try to laugh off a scolding. If he is encouraged, if his fooling is successful, he will repeat it again and again with growing exaggeration, will roll with wide month and absurd contortions, or fly at one's face to lick it. On the other hand, he will recognise that teasing is a humorous proceeding, and when he begins to get bored will try to stop it humorously.
Now the cat is solemnity incarnate; to punish it is to cause instant offence, to tease it is to outrage its dignity. The better bred a cat is the more easily is it offended. But the "sense of the ridiculous " is, after all, a gross quality, and the humour of one age seems vulgarity to the next. A cat is never vulgar. The old Egyptians said that a cat reasoned like a man, and the root of the matter is there. In the dog there is a quicker intelligence, a greater adaptability, and more facility in planning. But a dog cannot, as a cat can, determine its own end and purpose, and live its own life. He is, after all, the kinsman of Brer Fox, but the cat is a scion of royalty.
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