Catwatching
females who fail to become pregnant ovulate at regular intervals, regardless of whether they have mated with a male or not. Human virgins, for example, ovulate month after month, but this is not the case with cats.
    A virgin cat would not ovulate at all. Cats only ovulate after they have been mated by a male. It takes a little while – about twenty-five to thirty hours – but this does not matter because the intense period of heat lasts at least three days, so she is still actively copulating when ovulation occurs. The trigger that sets off the ovulation is the intense pain and shock the queen feels when her first suitor withdraws his spiny penis. This violent moment acts like the firing of a starting pistol which sets her reproductive hormonal system in operation.
    In a way, it is not far from the truth to call a female cat on heat 'masochistic' because, within about thirty minutes of having been hurt by the first male penis, she is actively interested in sex again and ready to be mated once more, with a repeat performance of the screamand-swipe reaction. Considering how much the spiny penis must have hurt her, it is clear that in a sexual context there is one kind of pain which does not produce the usual negative response.
     

Why do cats sneer?
     
    Every so often a cat can be seen to pause and then adopt a curious sneering expression, as if disgusted with something. When first observed, this reaction was in fact called an 'expression of disgust' and described as the cat 'turning up its nose' at an unpleasant smell, such as urine deposited by a rival cat. This interpretation is now known to be an error. The truth is almost the complete opposite. When the cat makes this strange grimace, known technically as the flehmen response, it is in reality appreciating to the full a delicious fragrance. We know this because tests have proved that urine from female cats in strong sexual condition produces powerful grimacing in male cats, while urine from females not in sexual condition produces a much weaker reaction.
    The response involves the following elements: the cat stops in its tracks, raises its head slightly, draws back its upper lip and opens its mouth a little. Inside the half-opened mouth it is sometimes possible to see the tongue flickering or licking the roof of the mouth.
    The cat sniffs and gives the impression of an almost trancelike concentration for a few moments. During this time it slows its breathing rate and. may even hold its breath for several seconds, after sucking in air. All the time it stares in front of it as if in a kind of reverie. If this behaviour were to be likened to a hungry man inhaling the enticing smells emanating from a busy kitchen, it would not be too far from the truth, but there is an important difference.
    For the cat is employing a sense organ that we sadly lack. The cat's sixth sense is to be found in a small structure situated in the roof of the mouth. It is a little tube opening into the mouth just behind the upper front teeth. Known as the vomero-nasal or Jacobsen's organ, it is about half an inch long and is highly sensitive to airborne chemicals. It can best be described as a taste-smell organ and is extremely important to cats when they are reading the odour-news deposited around their territories. During human evolution, when we became increasingly dominated by visual input to the brain, we lost the use of our Jacobsen's organs, of which only a tiny trace now remains, but for cats it is of great significance and explains the strange, snooty, gaping expression they adopt occasionally as they go about the social round.
     

How does a cat manage to fall on its feet?
     
    Although cats are excellent climbers they do occasionally fall, and when this happens a special 'righting reflex' goes into instant operation.
    Without this a cat could easily break its back. As it starts to fall, with its body upside-down, an automatic twisting reaction begins at the head end of the body. The head

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