Cat’s Sense Of Right Way Up

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 15

Cat’s Sense Of Right Way Up

(Special Crspdt. N.Z P.A.) LONDON, Feb. 4. A cat always lands on its feet because it knows when it is upside down, says a Cambridge lecturer, Dr. Giles-Brindley. Dr. Brindley a fellow of the Royal Society, proved this with the help of a few cats which strayed into the field of research.

In two years he held cats with their feet upward and dropped them. He threw them into the air to see if “deflection of the fur by the air” affected their movements, but they still landed on their feet. He even blindfolded them—the only difference was that they were “inclined to land less elegantly.” But the fun

of helping the cause of science had only just begun. Dr. Brindley built a sloping monorail putting the cats in boxes and slid them down to be tossed out at the appropriate experimental moment. He gave them rides on merry-go-rounds and dropped them.

Fur flew in all directions, but the cats still landed on all fours. Some cats were tested “to assess their ability to estimate the angle of gravity” in a box, attached to the inside roof of a car driven at 20 miles an hour.

“The cats,” said Dr. Brindley, “enjoyed it. They used to get up and have another go.” “We did not hurt them,

they never fall very far—about three feet or so and they landed on a pile of cotton waste.

“A cat has a memory like a computer, it stores up energy about its position and when it is dropped it knows instinctively what to do.

“By a series of physical jerks in which it first becomes u-shaped, and then turns halfway round, it . can rotate through an angle of 180 degrees within a space of about two feet." Dr. Brindley said the reason for his experiments was that “there is a problem that can be solved.”

But the R.S.P.C.A. was not so happy. A spokesman said: ‘"The whole experiment seems rather pointless.”