Cats are generally regarded as too susceptible of nervous excitement to perform in public, though their larger relatives, lions, tigers, and leopards, have been taught to perform a variety of tricks before spectators, and cats are readily taught to perform the same tricks in private. Bisset aimed at something higher than the exhibition of the leaping feats of the species, and succeeded in teaching three cats to play the dulcimer and squall to the notes. By the advice of Pinchbeck, with whom he had become acquainted, he hired a large room in the Haymarket, and announced a public performance of the "cat's opera," supplemented by the tricks of the horse, the dog, and the monkeys. Besides the organ-grinding and rope-dancing performance, the monkeys took wine together, and rode on the horse, pirouetting and somersaulting with the skill of a practised acrobat. One of them also danced a minuet with the dog. The "cat's opera" was attended by crowded houses, and Bisset cleared a thousand pounds by the exhibition in a few days. He afterwards taught a hare to walk on its hind legs, and beat a drum; a feathered company of canaries, linnets, and sparrows to spell names, tell the time by the clock, etc.; half-a-dozen turkeys to execute a country dance; and a turtle (according to Wilson, but probably a tortoise) to write names on the floor, having its feet blackened for the purpose. After a successful season in London, he sold some of the animals, and made a provincial tour with the rest, rapidly accumulating a considerable fortune. Passing over to Ireland in 1775, he exhibited his animals in Dublin and Belfast, afterwards establishing himself in a public-house in the latter city. There he remained until 1783, when he reappeared in Dublin with a pig, which he had taught to perform all the tricks since exhibited by the learned grunter's successors at all the fairs in the kingdom. He was on his way to London with the pig when he became ill at Chester, where he shortly afterwards died.