CATS EYES AS CLOCKS.

Northland Age, Volume IV, Issue 47, 13 July 1908, Page 2

CATS EYES AS CLOCKS.

So long as thero is a cat anywher® near, it is not necessary to have a watch or a clock, for the animal’® eyes will tell you the time of day. The first European to learn of the use of a cat as a time indicator was M. Hue, who, in a work on the Chinese Empire, tells how ho was initiated into the mystery. M. Hue and a party of friends set out to visit a Chinese Christian Mission settlement among the peasantry. They met a young Chinaman on th€ road, and to test, his intelligence they asked him if ho could tell them the time. Tho native looked up at tho sky, but the clouds hid the sun from viow, and ho could not read any answer there. Suddenly he darted away towards a farm, and returned in a few moments with a cat in his arms. Pushing up its eyelids with his hand, he told Hue to look at them, at the same time volunteering tho information that it was not noon yet. While they wero puzzling over the matter the boy went about his business.

When the party reached tho village they asked tho Christian converts if they could tell the time by a cot,’a eyes. Immediately thero started a wild hunt for cats, aud all tho cats obtainable in the neigh bourho«Hl wore brought before them. The Chinese pointed out that the pupils of a cat's eyes grow gradually narrower up to twelve noon, when they boearno scarcely perceptible linos, drawn jvr-i pendicularly across tho cyo, and nf.-% ter that dilation recommenced. Jl* c examined the eyes of several cat'*. y and verified what the Chinese hn«l told him. No doubt it was n 1r *• lc with which the natives had been familiar for centuries.