Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 136, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1910 — CATS AS WEATHER PROPHETS. [ARTICLE]

CATS AS WEATHER PROPHETS.

How the Pet A icon Telia ta What the Coming Season Is to Be. A number of women on the high authority of their pet Angora cats atate emphatically that there will be an early spring and a hot summer to follow. We have aiwayß known that Angora cats were undeniably Intelligent, the New York Evening Sun says, but no one has ever gone the length of claiming for them the gift of prophesying weather. It seems, though, that such is their extreme sensibility to heat and cold that one can tell by the amount they shed, the time they shed and the way they shed Just what their vie we on the coming season are. Such being the case, It Will Interest every one to know that they have this year begun shedding very early and that they are'conducting their shedding with great protaaioa. We would like farther details.

but tffiey have not so far been vouchsafed us. We have struggled for so many years with the weather bureau at Washington that we turn with almost tearful gratitude to anything that exhibits even the faintest signs of a reliable barometrical tendency. Could the cats be trained to be slightly more explicit? Not that we scorn their general remarks on the spring and summer; we are humbly glad to have heard them, but something a little more comprehensive, something—we hope they will not think we are pinning them down —something as definite as ‘ can we jump from winter to our summer clothes with safety, and over night, as it were, or must we indulge in some spring ones? Perhaps they with their power of gradual discarding of winter warmth are not interested In our spring troubles; yet if a cold day comes unexpectedly to us It comes with an equal blow to them and they cannot put on again what they have once taken off. This realization destroys a little of one’s faith in their prophetic powers unless, of course, it means that when they once begin to shed profusely there are not to be any more cold days.