The Whiskers of Cats

1878

Use of Whiskers to a Cat.

The sense which of all others is most deficient in the cat is that of smell. In this she differs most markedly from the dog. It is said that a piece of meat may be placed in close proximity to a cat, but that, if it is kept covered up she will fail to distinguish it.

This want is, however, partly compensated for by an extremely delicate sense of touch, which is possessed, to a remarkable extent, by the whiskers, or vibrissae, as well as by the general surface of the skin. These bristles are possessed to a greater or less extent by all cats, and are simply greatly developed hairs, having enormously swollen roots, covered with a layer of muscular fibres, with which delicate nerves are connected. By means of these latter, the slightest touch on the extremity of the whiskers, is instantly transmitted to the brain.

Those organs are of the greatest possible value to the cat in its nocturnal campaigns. When it is deprived of the guidance afforded by light it makes its way by the sense of touch, the fine whiskers touching against every object the cat passes, and thus acting in precisely the same manner as a blind man's stick, though with infinitely greater sensibility. Imagine a blind man with not one stick, but with a couple of dozen, of exquisite fineness, and these not held in his hand but embedded in his skin, so that his nerves come into direct contact with them instead of having a layer of skin between, and some notion may be formed of the way in which a cat uses its whiskers.