Animals of the cat kind are, in a state of nature almost continually in
action both by night and by day. They either walk, creep, or advance
rapidly by prodigious bounds; but they seldom _run_, owing, it
is believed, to the extreme flexibility of their limbs and vertebral
column, which cannot preserve the rigidity necessary to that species of
movement. Their sense of sight, especially during twilight, is acute;
their hearing very perfect, and their perception of smell less so than
in the dog tribe. Their most obtuse sense is that of taste; the lingual
nerve in the lion, according to Des Moulins, being no larger than that
of a middle-sized dog. In fact, the tongue of these animals is as
much an organ of mastication as of taste; its sharp and horny points,
inclined backwards, being used for tearing away the softer parts of the
animal substances on which they prey. The perception of touch is said
to reside very delicately in the small bulbs at the base of the
mustachios.--_Wilson's Zoology_.
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