The Miracle of Dido the Blind Cat

The family favorite whose misfortunes have afforded an opportunity to observe the working of instinct under difficulties is a noble specimen of the genus felis. 'Dido' is his name. During the four years of his life he has never been known to do anything wrong, unless it be to fight most desperately against all feline intruders. Dido met with an injury to one of his feet that made a surgical operation necessary, from which he recovered, but shortly afterward went totally blind. A cataract was formed over each eye, by which vision was thoroughly obscured. Dido's life seemed hardly worth living, and we were seriously plotting his death, when the cat himself clearly concluded that he must make his other senses atone for the loss of sight. He learned to descend stairs by feeling the banisters with his whiskers, and he determined the exact location of each door. Curiosity led me to test his homing instinct during a heavy snowfall. I took Dido to a considerable distance from the house, made a number of turns to bewilder him, and set him upon a snowdrift. Finding at last that he was thrown entirely on his own resources, he stood motionless for a moment, then made his way directly through the untrodden snow to the house door.