Clicks and purrs

Prologue:
I've heard of clicking beetles. And hissing cockroaches (I've actually seen them, too -- my entomologist friend Andrew has a pair). But cats... cats just keep on surprising me.

On with the story!

I'm almost 30. And I'd never heard a cat purr until 3 years ago, would you believe it?

Indian cats don't purr, it would seem. They just snarl, and hiss, and yowl. But then, growing up in Bombay, I never knew anyone who kept a cat as a pet. People had dogs, fish, squirrels, parrots, budgerigars... one or two had rabbits... but no cats. The only cats around were the stray, feral ones --- and there were plenty of those. But they never purred. Not to my knowledge, at least. Purring was something only the cats in storybooks did.

Americans, on the other hand, seem about equally-divided between cat-people and dog-people. And in the past few years, I've made a number of friends with members of the former division, and so have had much more exposure to domesticated felines than before. (I myself grew up a dog-person, and still consider myself as one, but I've learned to appreciate and enjoy cats too, now.) But the first time I heard a cat purr, I damn near jumped out of my skin --- I thought it was growling at me! And heaven knows, I didn't want to be within range of those irrational, easily-aggravated claws. Much hilarity ensued, of course, amongst the cat-owner and other humans present.

But this particular species wasn't quite done pulling my tail just yet. More surprises were still in store. That other same day, while I was peering fascinatedly at the baby cats (see my previous post), Katie asked me if I'd like to hear them purr. "Sure!" I said, confident now in my ability to correctly identify a purr. She held one up to my ear, and I waited. And waited. And heard nothing that matched anything in my mental database of animal sounds. "Listen!" she said. "Don't you hear it?"

"Hear what?"

-- "That clicking sound!"

"That clicking sound?!?"

-- "Yes!"

(And yes, I had heard a series of clicks emanating from roughly the animal's thoracic region, but they hadn't registered as anything noteworthy. I had been expecting *purrs*!)

"They click?!?"

-- "Yes!"

"I thought you said they were purring!"

-- "Well, that's how kittens purr."

... My education continues.