In this week's episode, a brief history of talking cats, cat organs and cat orchestras...

Sources

For talking cats see the following:

Hamilton Daily News, 16 February 1912

Nelson Leader, 3 June 1932

Dundee Evening Telegraph, 12 July 1946

Dundee Evening Telegraph, 21 September 1946

Dundee Evening Telegraph, 20 June 1947

For the cat organ and cat orchestras see the following:

GH Wilson, The Eccentric Mirror (1807)

For more on learned pigs and other odd animal stories see Jan Bondeson, The Cat Orchestra and the Elephant Butler: The Strange History of Amazing Animals (The History Press, 2006)

Robert J. Richards, ‘Rhapsodies on a Cat-Piano, or Johann Christian Reil and the Foundations of Romantic Psychiatry’, Critical Enquiry, Spring 1998, pp.700-701