Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 234, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1917 — TAIL SERVES MANY PURPOSES [ARTICLE]

TAIL SERVES MANY PURPOSES

With the Cat It Is Merely an Ornament, but Not So With Numerous Other Animals. The question having arisen, “Why does the cat have a tail?” the scientists seem willing to answer it with another quest® i. “How would the cat look without a tail?” No one can gainsay the fact that the tail is a valuable ornament. The cat without one is a sorry sight. But there are those who maintain that the tail serves the cat as a sort of gyroscope, balancing the body in leaping, says the Popular Science Monthly. This cannot be w’holly true, for Manx cats get along very well without tails, and rabbits have no use for them, at all. Yet both the Manx cats and rabbits do a lot of leaping. After all It looks as if the tall Is only an ornament, unless It is a kind of safety valve for expression In exciting times. Of course there are Instances where the tall serves some purpose other than that of art. The monkey finds his useful as a sort of fifth leg; the horse uses his as a fly swatter, as does the Hon; the crocodile uses his for swimming, as do the seal and the turtle and other aquatic and the rattlesnake uses his for warning enemies. According to W. D. Matthews of the American Museum of Natural History, the tall was a necessary organ for the aquatic and amphibious ancestors from which the higher animals are descended. When they took to terrestrial life and to walking on all foyrs, the tall became more or less superfluous.