This means that a nineyear-old cat approaching the end of its life has only been awake for a total of about three years. This is not the case in most other mammals and puts the cat into a special category – that of the refined killer.
The cat is so efficient at obtaining its highly nutritious food that it has evolved time to spare, using this time to sleep and, apparently, to dream. Other carnivores, such as dogs and mongooses, have to spend much more time scurrying round, searching and chasing. The cat sits and waits, stalks a little, kills and eats, and then dozes off like a wellfed gourmet. Nothing falls asleep quite so easily as a cat. There are three types of feline sleep: the brief nap, the longer light sleep and the deep sleep. The light sleep and the deep sleep alternate in characteristic bouts. When the animal settles down for more than a nap, it floats off into a phase of light sleep which lasts for about half an hour. Then the cat sinks further into slumber and, for six to seven minutes, experiences deep sleep. After this it returns to another bout of thirty minutes of light sleep, and so on until it eventually wakes up. During the periods of deep sleep the cat's body relaxes so much that it usually rolls over on to its side and this is the time when it appears to be dreaming, with frequent twitchings and quivering of ears, paws and tail. The mouth may make sucking movements and there are even occasional vocalizations, such as growls, purrs and general mutterings.
There are also bursts of rapid eye movement, but throughout all this the cat's trunk remains immobile and totally relaxed. At the start of its life, as a very young kitten during its first month, it experiences only this deep type of sleep which lasts for a total of about twelve hours out of every twenty-four. After the first month the kittens rapidly switch to the adult pattern.
Why are cat-owners healthier than other people?
This may sound a strange question, but there is a great deal of evidence to prove that cat-owning is good for your health. And there is some comfort for beleaguered pet-owners, often criticized today for 'messing up the environment with their animals', that the anti-pet lobby will die younger than they will. There are two reasons for this.
First, it is known that the friendly physical contact with cats actively reduces stress in their human companions. The relationship between human and cat is touching in both senses of the word. The cat rubs against its owner's body and the owner strokes and fondles the cat's fur. If such owners are wired up in the laboratory to test their physiological responses, it is found that their body systems become markedly calmer when they start stroking their cats. Their tension eases and their bodies relax. This form of feline therapy has been proved in practice in a number of acute cases where mental patients have improved amazingly after being allowed the company of pet cats.
We all feel somehow released by the simple, honest relationship with the cat. This is the second reason for the cat's beneficial impact on humans. It is not merely a matter of touch, important as that may be.
It is also a matter of psychological relationship which lacks the complexities, betrayals and contradictions of human relationships. We are all hurt by certain human relationships from time to time, some of us acutely, others more trivially. Those with severe mental scars may find it hard to trust again. For them, a bond with a cat can provide rewards so great that it may even give them back their faith in human relations, destroy their cynicism and their suspicion and heal their hidden scars. And a special study in the United States has recently revealed that, for those whose stress has led to heart trouble, the owning of a cat may literally make the difference between life and death, reducing blood pressure and calming the overworked heart.
Why is a female cat called a queen?
Because when she is on heat she lords it over the toms. They must gather around her like a circle of courtiers, must approach her with great deference, and are often punished by her in an autocratic manner.
Why is a male cat called a tom?
This can be traced back precisely to the year 1760 when an anonymous story was published called The Life and Adventures of a Cat. In it the 'ram cat', as a male was then known, was given the name 'Tom the Cat'.
The story enjoyed great popularity, and before long anyone referring to a male cat, instead of calling it a 'ram', used the word Tom, which has survived now for over 200 years.
Why is a brothel called a cathouse?
Prostitutes have been called cats since the fifteenth century, for the simple reason that the urban female cat attracts many toms when she is on heat and mates with them one after the other. As early as 1401, men were warned of the risks of chasing the 'cattis tailis', or cat's tail.
This also explains why the word 'tail' is sometimes used today as slang for female genitals. A similar use for the word 'pussy' dates from the seventeenth century.
Why do we say 'he let the cat out of the bag'?
The origin of this phrase, meaning 'he gave away a secret', dates back to the eighteenth century when it referred to a market-day trick.
Piglets were often taken to market in a small sack, or bag, to be sold.
The trickster would put a cat in a bag and pretend that it was a pig.
If the buyer insisted on seeing it, he would be told that it was too lively to risk opening up the bag, as the animal might escape. If the cat struggled so much that the trickster let the cat out of the bag, his secret was exposed. A popular name for the bag itself was a 'poke', hence that other expression 'never buy a pig in a poke'.
Why do we speak of not having a 'cat-in-hell's' chance?
At first sight this is as puzzling as the well-known footballer's lament of being as 'sick as a parrot'. In both cases the mystery is solved if you know the original, unabbreviated saying which has long since been discontinued. The complete cat phrase is: 'No more chance than a cat in hell without claws'. It was originally a reference to the hopelessness of being without adequate weapons. (The original parrot saying, incidentally, was 'as sick as a parrot with a rubber beak' a similar allusion to the lack of a sharp weapon.)
Why do we speak of someone 'having kittens'?
When we say 'she will have kittens if she finds out about this' we mean that someone will be terribly upset, almost to the point of hysteria.
At first sight there is no obvious connection between distraught human behaviour and giving birth to kittens. True, a panic-stricken or hysterical woman who happens to be pregnant might suffer a miscarriage as a result of the intense emotional distress, so suddenly giving birth as a result of panic is not hard to understand. But why kittens?
Why not puppies, or some other animal image?
To find the answer we have to turn the clock back to medieval times, when cats were thought of as the witch's familiars. If a pregnant woman was suffering agonizing pains, it was believed that she was bewitched and that she had kittens clawing at her inside her womb.
Because witches had control over cats, they could provide magical potions to destroy the litter, so that the wretched woman would not give birth to kittens. As late as the seventeenth century an excuse for obtaining an abortion was given in court as removing 'cats in the belly'. Since any woman believing herself to be bewitched and about to give birth to a litter of kittens would become hysterical with fear and disgust, it is easy to see how the phrase 'having kittens' has come to stand for a state of angry panic.
Why does a cat have nine lives?
The cat's resilience and toughness led to the idea that it had more than one life, but the reason for endowing it with nine lives, rather than any other number, has often puzzled people. The answer is simple enough.
In ancient times nine was considered a particularly lucky number because it was a 'trinity of trinities' and therefore ideally suited for the 'lucky' cat.
Why do we say 'there is no room to swing a cat'?
This refers to the whip called 'the cat', employed on early naval vessels, and not to the animal itself. The cat, or cat-o'-nine-tails (because it has nine separate knotted thongs), was too long to swing below decks. As a
result, sailors condemned to be punished with a whipping had to be taken up above, where there was room to swing a cat.
The reason why the whip itself was called a cat was because it left scars on the backs of the whipped sailors reminiscent of the claw marks of a savage cat.
Why do we say 'it is raining cats and dogs'?
This phrase became popular several centuries ago at a time when the streets of towns and cities were narrow, filthy and had poor drainage.
Unusually heavy storms produced torrential flooding which drowned large numbers of the half-starved cats and dogs that foraged there. After a downpour was over, people would emerge from their houses to find the corpses of these unfortunate animals, and the more gullible among them believed that the bodies must have fallen from the sky and that it had literally been raining cats and dogs. A description of the impact of a severe city storm, written by Jonathan Swift in 1710, supports this view: 'Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow, and bear their trophies with them as they go… drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud, dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood." Some classicists prefer a more ancient explanation, suggesting that the phrase is derived from the Greek word for a waterfall: catadupa. If rain fell in torrents – like a waterfall – then the saying 'raining catadupa' could gradually have been converted into 'raining cats and dogs'.
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