CATS THAT COME HOME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 114, 17 May 1933, Page 11

CATS THAT COME HOME

REMARKABLE INSTINCT. INSTANCES IN AUSTRALIA. There is no reason to doubt the story that a Melbourne cat, taken away on an American boat, took no interest in other lands, but recognised its home port immediately the vessel returned last month, says the Melbourne Argus. This is another example of the remarkable homing instincts which is so highly developed in certain animals and birds —an instinct that has puzzled scientifi< rhen ever since it became known. The extraordinary development of this sense in the homing pigeon is the most familiar manifestation of the kind. Bush dwellers everywhere can tell stories of the facility of cats for finding their homes after having been taken to distant localities. Last year a house cat was lent by a settler in Victoria to a neighbour six miles away. Within a week the animal had found its way home, arriving ]ate at night, through heavy bush. Obviously some other sense than that of sight guided it. A cat taken by its owner from Sydney to Bathurst had not previously been out of Sydney; yet a week after its arrival in Bathurst it disappeared, and a fortnight later it appeared worn and weary at the old home in Sydney. It is doubtful whether even the cat knew how it found the direction, and how it contrived to traverse 145 miles of strange country on foot. When put into a rabbit’s burrow at Majorca, near Maryborough, some time ago, in rocky country three miles from homo, a ferret disappeared and, was given up as lost. Several weeks later the owner was astonished to see his lost ferret sidling down a hill and approaching tho house. It went straight to its old box, curled up, and dropped off to sleep. Certain kinds of dogs, too, have a marked “bump of locality.” Sydney people used to be amused a few years ago by a retriever, which, when it wanted to frisk with a distant mate, would go up to the railway station in its suburb, jump on the first train going in the right direction, and alight at a station five miles south. Tho dog never by any chance took tho wrong train or got off at th© wrong station.