However, Gardner’s tale has all the hallmarks of a tall story, plus a dash of hearsay and a scoop of anecdotal evidence—or all three. It could just as well have been a rotten pork chop. How can you tell when it’s all cooked up in a pie?
INCIDENT 13: Away Up Aloft!
“Matthew Flinders’ Biographical Tribute to His Cat Trim”
Matthew Flinders, 1809
“
The replacing a top-mast carried away, or taking a reef in the sails were what most attracted his [Trim’s] attention at sea; and at all times when there was more bustle upon deck than usual, he never failed to be present and in the midst of it; for as I have before hinted, he was endowed with an unusual degree of confidence and courage, and having never received anything but good from men, he believed all to be his friends, and he was the friend of all. When the nature of the bustle upon the deck was not understood by him, he would mew and rub his back up against legs of one and the other, frequently at the risk of being trampled underfoot, until he obtained the attention of someone to satisfy him. He knew what good discipline required, and on taking in a reef, never presumed to go aloft until the order was issued; but go as soon as the officer had issued the word—‘Away up aloft!’
Up he jumped along with the seamen, and so active and zealous was he, that none could reach the top before, or so soon as he did. His zeal, however, never carried him beyond a sense of dignity; he did not lay out on the yard like a common seaman, but always remained seated upon the cap, to inspect like an officer. This assumption of authority to which, it must be confessed, his rank, though great as a quadruped, did not entitle him amongst men, created no jealousy; for he always found some good friend ready to caress him after the business was done, and to take him down in his arms.
”
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The exhilaration of going aloft is hard to resist. Going up is a breeze; coming down less so, as Trim—Matthew Flinders’ much-loved seafurrer who circumnavigated Australia—found. Chalk it up to the claw problem. Designed to shimmy up trees, fences, trellises, wooden power poles, carpeted scratching posts, and trouser legs, cats’ claws curve toward the back rather like built-in crampons. Going up they do a great job; coming down, not so much—the claws are pointing the wrong way for getting a grip.
The savvy seafurrer has three options for the descent: thoughtful headfirst, discreet backing down, or hitching a ride—as Trim preferred. The angle of descent tends to be the decider for most seafurrers. Worst-case scenario? Jumping. It isn’t always a nine-lives extreme challenge. Cats are designed to make a perfect landing on all four paws. Mostly.
How cats turn midair and land on their feet intrigued sapiens scientists in the nineteenth century. “How could a free-falling body change its orientation such that it is able to right itself as it falls to land on its feet, irrespective of its initial orientation, and without violating the law of conservation of angular momentum?” they asked. It seemed to defy Newtonian physics.
At Cambridge University in the 1850s, scientists apparently adopted the highly unethical approach of dropping cats out of windows to find out. James Clerk Maxwell wrote to his wife:
There is a tradition in Trinity [College] that when I was here I discovered a method of throwing a cat so as not to light on its feet, and that I used to throw cats out of windows. I had to explain that the proper object of research was to find how quick the cat would turn round, and that the proper method was to let the cat drop on a table or bed from about two inches, and that even then the cat lights on her feet.
Maxwell may have been a bit of a genius and gone on to become one of the nineteenth century’s greatest theoretical physicists, but he never solved the “falling cat problem”—more a people problem of understanding than a cat problem, unless the cat happened to meet a physicist.
In 1894, French scientist and photographer Étienne-Jules Marey showed how falling cats turn midair and land on their feet in a series of images he captured at twelve frames per second on his chronophotographic gun and published in Nature. While he, too, was a cat thrower, at least it was not out of windows. He also made in 1894 what is probably the world’s first cat movie: Falling Cat.
Within 0.125 to 0.5 of a second, a cat can safely turn over in its own standing height. In fact, “the speed and agility with which a cat turns over is truly wonderful,” says Dr. Donald McDonald in New Scientist, where he describes a gold-medal performance that achieves a net rotation while keeping total angular momentum constant and sticking the perfect landing. Of course, having a flexible backbone and no functional collarbone (clavicle) helps with such aerial acrobatics. As in all things, practice makes perfect, and experience is a great teacher.
The righting reflex (also called air righting) begins to appear in kittens at three to four weeks of age, and they have perfected it by six to seven weeks.
INCIDENT 14: Team Players
Ten “Old Salts”: Photograph taken on board USS Hartford at Hampton Roads, Virginia, winter 1876, by order of Chaplain David H. Tribou, US Navy
(Front row, left to right) Seaman James H. Bell and Quartermaster Thomas Trueman; (second row, left to right) Boatswain’s Mate Peter Eagen, Seaman Isaac Turner, and Schoolmaster James Connell; (rear row, left to right) Boatswain’s Mate Edward Nash, Boatswain’s Mate David Clark, Seaman William McNulty, Quarter Gunner William Harrington, and Gunner’s Mate Albert Allen
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In the age of the selfie, taking photos is an everyday part of life. Back in 1876, photography was very much the new kid on the block, and it tended to involve rather cumbersome equipment. Early adopter Roger Fenton dragged his photography cart over Crimea in 1855, shooting battlefields, fortifications, and portraits of officers and men. Matthew Brady’s bunch took it a step further, recording life on ships as well as in battlefields during the American Civil War (1861–65). They had more than seven thousand negatives when peace was declared.
Photography was the “documentary” game changer. David Tribou, one of the younger naval chaplains then on duty (appointed 1872), was interested in history and ended up Chaplain Corps historian with his own archive.
He was a man who liked to keep himself busy. As well as holding divine service on Sundays,
he lectured to the men on the “history, government and resources of the islands” visited by the ship [USS Powhatan], and arranged for “friends from on shore” to give several concerts. The ship’s library under his supervision, was “much enlarged during the year. . . .” Tribou tried to induce men “to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors.” He summarized his activities with this observation: “The work of a Chaplain which can be reported is but a small part, and by far the least important part of his duty. While I have tried to attend to the more public duties, I have never lost sight of the fact that, in personal work among the men, lies the Chaplain’s most promising opportunity, and while there is much to discourage one in such work yet it is by far the most satisfactory part of the work which I am sent to do.”
Ten “Old Salts” is one of the earliest surviving “team player” photographs. We don’t know why Tribou ordered the lineup, but it’s easy to take an imaginative leap and guess he had copies printed for each of the men to send home to their families. It’s unlikely he labeled the image Old Salts.
Tribou gets many tributes, but here’s another for the record books: He knew it was important to have a pen and paper handy, as well as a camera, to name the team for posterity. Maritime archives are overflowing with unidentified or partially identified shipboard-life team shots. In 1893, on USS New York, Edward Hart not only shot the ships’ tailors and their pets, as shown here, but also the carpenters’ gang, the champion boat crew, the crew of the forward 8-inch guns, and many more, but no one knows who they are.
Tailors of USS New York (from between 1893 and 1901)
INCIDENT 15: All Aboard
Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Mark Twain, 1897
“
Monday, December 23, 1895 . . . This Oceana is a stately big ship, luxuriously appointed. She has spacious promenade decks. Large rooms; a surpassingly comfortable ship. The officers’ library is well selected; a ship’s library is not usually that. . . . For meals, the bugle call, man-of-war fashion; a pleasant change from the terrible gong. . . . Three big cats—very friendly loafers; they wander all over the ship; the white one follows the chief steward around like a dog. There is also a basket of kittens. One of these cats goes ashore, in port, in England, Australia, and India, to see how his various families are getting along, and is seen no more till the ship is ready to sail. No one knows how he finds out the sailing date, but no doubt he comes down to the dock every day and takes a look, and when he sees baggage and passengers flocking in, recognizes that it is time to get aboard. This is what the sailors believe.
”
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Remarkable? Possibly. But it’s unlikely this is really in the headline-grabbing “cat finds way home” category or that any ESP was involved. The answer is probably very straightforward. I’d imagine the Oceana’s cat disembarked to stretch his legs and hung around the dock to check out the local fare. He would be very familiar with the sounds, smells, and hustle and bustle of departure and know exactly when to stroll back on board, seemingly from nowhere.
There are numerous such stories, but generally there’s going to be a commonsense explanation. Take Charles H. Ross’ story in The Book of Cats (1868):
In 1819 a favourite Tabby belonging to a shipmaster was left on shore, by accident, while his vessel sailed from the harbour of Aberdour, Fife-shire [on the north shore of the Firth of Forth in Scotland], which is about half a mile from the village. The vessel was a month absent, and on her return, to the astonishment of the shipmaster, Puss came on board with a fine stout kitten in her mouth, apparently about three weeks old, and went directly down into the cabin. Two others of her young ones were afterwards caught, quite wild, in a neighbouring wood, where she must have remained with them until the return of the ship. The shipmaster did not allow her, again, to go on shore, otherwise it is probable she would have brought all her family on board. It was very remarkable, because vessels were daily going in and out of the harbour, none of which she ever thought of visiting till the one she had left returned.
Tabby may have been left behind, but it’s more likely she headed down the gangplank as soon as the ship docked and over to the nearby woods to deliver her kittens in privacy. With a family to feed, she would then regularly be out and about hunting, and the port with its endless supply of rodents likely provided “easy pickings” on her daily rounds. Just because no one saw her swing by doesn’t mean she didn’t. It’s unlikely she was on the lookout for her ship, but when it fortuitously docked, she just headed back on board for home comforts and family support. Who wouldn’t?
Incidentally . . .
Sapiens are very dependent on their eyes to get their bearings. They also have maps and now GPS. Other animals don’t need to be shown the way to go home like this because they use their senses. Which senses they use depends on the animal.
The sun and the stars shine for seabirds and migrating birds.
Magnetism matters for baby sea turtles, which typically migrate after hatching. A rather mean experiment that involved changing the orientation of magnetic generators around a swimming pool changed the direction in which the hatchlings swam, too (they were only babies).
The nose knows for felines and canines. But “the ability to find their way home depends in part on how far from home they get,” reports animal behaviorist Dr. Bonnie Beaver of Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine in a personal communication. She says:
In general dogs and cats have a relatively good sense of direction and use it to start their searches, but they depend on their senses for most navigation home. Because the home ranges of outdoor animals overlap, the animals are familiar with the smells of their neighbors. As the dog or cat randomly searches, it can begin orienting toward home once it picks up the familiar smell of the neighbor animal. As wanderings continue, it eventually picks up the smell of a second neighboring animal and can then orient more precisely.
It’s worth remembering that some of the miraculous homecomings the press puts on the front page might simply be a case of mistaken identity or wishful thinking. “You hear these stories about a three-legged black cat that came home and jumped into its favorite chair,” says Beaver. “But it’s real hard to be sure because they’ve been gone a long time and they look scruffy. And heck, that chair would be a comfortable one for any cat.”
Too right.
INCIDENT 16: The Consolation of Pets
Through the First Antarctic Night, 1898–1899: A Narrative of the Voyage of the “Belgica” Among Newly Discovered Lands and over an Unknown Sea About the South Pole
Frederick Cook, 1900
“
June 26.—It is Sunday; the weather is warm, wet, and too stormy to permit our usual Sabbath excursions. We are playing cards and grinding the music-boxes, and trying in various ways to throw off the increasing gloom of the night; but something has happened which has added another cloud to the hell of blackness which enshrouds us. One of the sailors brought with him from Europe a beautiful young kitten. This kitten has been named ‘Nansen,’ and it has steadily grown into our affections. ‘Nansen’ was at home alike in the forecastle and in the cabin, but with characteristic good sense he did not venture out on exploring trips. A temperature thirty degrees below zero was not to his liking; the quarters about the stove and the bed of a favourite sailor were his choice. Since the commencement of the long darkness he has been ill at ease, but previously he was happy and contented, and glad to be petted and loved by everybody. The long night, however, brought out all the bad qualities of his ancestors. For nearly a month he has been in a kind of stupour, eating very little and sleeping much. If we tried to arouse him he displayed considerable anger. We have brought in a penguin occasionally to try to infuse new ambitions and a new friendship in the cat, but both the penguin and the cat were contented to take to opposite corners of the room. Altogether ‘Nansen’ seemed thoroughly disgusted with his surroundings and his associates, and lately he has sought exclusion in unfrequented corners. His temperament has changed from the good and lively creature to one of growling discontent. His mind has wandered and from his changed spiritual attitude we believe that his soul has wandered too. A day or two ago his life departed, we presume for more congenial regions. We are glad that his torture is ended, but we miss ‘Nansen’ very much. He has been the attribute to our good fortune to the present, the only speck of sentimental life within reach. We have showered upon him our affections, but the long darkness has made him turn against us. In the future we shall be without a mascot and what will be our fate?
”
Drawing of Nansen by cabin boy Johan Koren,
who brought Nansen on board Belgica, circa 1897
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It’s about transitioning. Farm cats transitioned from pest controller to pet. The same happened with sea cats. Sailors were often so devoted to their furry friends that they would hove to and row to the rescue if a seafurrer fell overboard, as John Locke recorded in 1553 when the “shippes Cat lept into the Sea” (see Incident 23).
Their furry friends returned the favor. “Saved by a Cat from Drowning: Feline Pet Scratches the Face of a Sleeping Man on a Sinking Ship” was one headline in 1898:
PORT TOWNSEND. Nov. 27.—During a heavy storm that prevailed in the harbor last night the steamer Wildwood sank while lying at her dock. A large hole was made in her hull by a drifting log. A man who was asleep on board was saved from drowning by the ship’s cat, which awakened him by scratching his face just as the steamer was going down.
Once upon a time, ships were so full of furry friends you would be forgiven for thinking them floating farmyards. There were cattle, pigs, go
ats, and poultry for fresh meat, eggs, and milk. And numerous pets. “The sailors, particularly those on board our iron-clad men-of-war, are very partial to having pets at sea with them,” the People’s Press reassured its pet-loving readers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1892:
This custom is not commonly forbidden by the commanding officers, for the life of a sailor is at best but a lonely and monotonous one, and he requires the companionship and recreation that are afforded by the presence of some animal. Some one of these pets is usually the favorite, and is acknowledged by all, from captain down to cabin boy, as a mascot.
The mascot of the Baltimore is a goat. When she was put in commission he was duly entered on the vessel’s papers as “William Goat.” He is an old salt, having been in Uncle Sam’s navy since he was a kid. He will only consent to go ashore when the first cutter is lowered for “His Goatship,” and he listens to the service every Sunday morning in as exemplary a manner as any of the other tars.
On board the Richmond at one time a hog was kept as a mascot. He had a bath every morning and always presented a neat appearance. His principal amusement consisted in pacing the deck with all the precision and dignity of an officer of the guard. He became almost too fat to move and was allowed to die a natural death.