Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1900: Vol. 56, Nov. 1899 to April, 1900Various
History
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1900: Vol. 56, Nov. 1899 to April, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
An estimable lady of the writer's acquaintance who owned one of these
"salamander" cats, with a single juvenile pussy to provide for, kept
an accurate account of the number of these rodents which she saw this
industrious mother cat bring to her offspring in a single month. The
number was thirty, and as the month happened to be February this gave,
of course, two more than a "salamander" a day.
One other curious observed feature of this new variety of cats is their
want of fecundity. The mother tabby seldom has more than one kitten
at a birth. The writer once owned a fine female of this breed that
scrupulously adhered to the traditional habits of her race.
This particular pussy, like the rest of us, had her family troubles.
Her one kitten--probably from its mixed parentage--was always inclined
to rebel at the "salamander" diet. There was something amusing to a
degree and suggestively human in the old cat's methods of discipline.
When she had succeeded in catching a salamander she would always first
bring it and lay it down before her mistress, to make sure of the
praise and the petting. Then, with a motherly "_meow_," she would call
her kitten. That frisky little youngster was always quite ready for his
breakfast, but showed a decided preference for the "maternal font."
Then the old cat would give him a "cuff" that would send him spinning.
Then she would take up the "salamander" and put it down before her
hopeful offspring with an air that said as plainly as words could do:
"There, now! Eat that or go hungry!" Then her mother love would get the
better of her and she would go to licking and petting her disobedient
baby, and it would usually end in the kitten's having its own way
and satisfying its hunger with milk from the "original package." By
persistence and the force of example the old cat finally succeeded in
accustoming her offspring to what she evidently thought the orthodox
diet of her race.
The writer is quite well aware of the intrinsic difficulties involved
in the spontaneous development of any new variety of cats. Still, such
branching of types has occurred in the past, and of course is possible
now. When his attention was first called to the matter he was inclined
to consider it merely an instance of animal education. A fact that came
under his personal observation seems, however, hard to reconcile with
this or any theory that does not concede the hereditary transmission of
acquired habits and tastes.
A kitten of the breed of cats in question was taken when very young and
reared nearly a mile away from its mother. When grown it developed the
same skill in hunting "salamanders," and the same love for the sport as
that for which its mother was celebrated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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