THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410080190
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY CATHERINE G. TOMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
THE TRIBE OF TIGER
Cats and Their Culture
ELIZABETH MARSHALL THOMAS
Simon & Schuster. 240 pp. $20.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Are there 32 species of cat or 35? Within the first 50 pages of ``The Tribe of Tiger,'' author Elizabeth Marshall Thomas quotes both figures. To add to my confusion, I had previously learned that there are 37! Her observations unsubstantiated, her writing disorganized, I gave up on reviewing Thomas' book and turned to a big-cat expert for a definitive critique.
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While traveling recently through the verdant rain forests of Ecuador, where I read Elizabeth Marshall Thomas' The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture, I studied the facial expressions of a companion deep in thought. I imagined that he was considering some serious issue of global concern - the loss of biodiversity, perhaps. A moment later, I was surprised to learn that he had been calculating the exchange rate for a 50-dollar traveler's check!
Though I cannot accurately interpret the thoughts and feelings of a single member of my own species, Thomas amazingly presumes in The Tribe of Tiger that she can read (and with considerable precision!) the thoughts of a vast assemblage of species very different from our own. In one of many such presumptions, Thomas relates the thoughts of her domestic cats as they approach a new car in the driveway. After smelling the tires, the cats jump up on the hood:
``It seems to me,'' she writes, ``that the cats are intrigued by the height, and wish to experience the vehicle as a high thing. . . . Later, if the door is open, the cats go inside and explore the interior. It is as if they are asking themselves what difference the vehicle is making to their world.''
Though my own cats perform the same behaviors, I believe that they simply enjoy the warmth of the car's hood, and that the exploration of the interior is probably just their way of checking out ``who's been here?'' I suppose it's possible that Thomas' cats are more philosophical than mine, but I seriously doubt it.
Thomas could have dramatically improved the believability of her ``nonfiction'' book, a follow-up to her surprise best seller, The Hidden Life of Dogs, with a few trips to the public library. In her very first paragraph, Thomas rewrites evolution by stating that ``the first aquatic creatures had little else to eat except one another . . . since plants had not evolved.'' Gosh, I was always taught that bacteria, algae and aquatic plants profoundly changed the earth by producing oxygen, which in turn made possible the evolution of herbivores and carnivores. Oh well, maybe Thomas learned about evolution from her cat.
Thomas conveniently redefines the terms ``culture'' and ``solitary /social species'' to support her tenet that all cats are basically social - some just live farther apart - and that all cats have a strong culture that defines the way they think and feel. Anthropomorphism is not a crime, but if it were, Thomas would be serving life without parole. She continuously refers to mated pairs as ``husbands and wives''; their offspring are ``children,'' and a lion licking a carcass is said to be ``expressing affection and even gratitude toward his or her prey.''
With a fair number of recent interesting behavioral studies on wild and domestic cats suggesting otherwise, it is hard to understand how interpretations such as these can be formed. Thomas' conclusions become more understandable, perhaps, when one realizes that her insight into cat behavior has been shaped primarily by her interaction with exotic-pet owners, a circus trainer, a man who runs pumas with dogs and other similar ``experts'' in cat behavior. The literature she cites reveals only a few general books and articles written 30 years ago in popular magazines.
Take every sentence Thomas writes - and every word her cats say - with a grain of salt. Serious cat lovers seeking insight into felid behavior, adaptations or evolution may wish to leave this book on the shelf, where the family cat can contemplate how she fits oh-so-nicely upon its perfectly rectangular shape. MEMO: Catherine G. Tompson is curator of education at The Baltimore Zoo. Her
specialty is the cat family. by CNB