Normally we do not think of solitary animals as forming a community of any kind except for the very limited purposes and periods of propagation. Perhaps this is true of a great number of species, even some mammals as, for example, the hamster, the red squirrel, the badger (Eibl-Eibesfeldt1950, Eibl-Eibesfeldt1953, Eibl-Eibesfeldt1958) and the wolverine (Krott1959).

However, if we want to examine more closely what relationships might possibly exist between individuals of an allegedly solitary mammalian species, we are in a very bad position indeed. For the main reason why so many mammals are said to be solitary seems to be that they can only be shot one at a time. Very little field work has been done on such species; field workers—for reasons not to be discussed here—have concentrated on mammals living in social groups or herds.

Hence some of my arguments will be of a highly speculative nature. The only justification is my hope that they may help to arouse more interest in the life of solitary mammals and that more field observations will be made over long periods of time and in sufficient detail.

[cat etiquette] …Cats seem to regulate their traffic mainly by visual contact. It is often possible to observe one cat watching another moving a path some distance away—say ~30–100 yards—until it is out of sight. Some time afterwards, the watching cat can usually be seen using the same path.

On occasion I have observed two cats approaching a kind of cat crossroads from different directions. If they had gone on they would have met almost precisely at the crossing. Both sat down and stared at each other, looking deliberately away from time to time. The deadlock is eventually broken either by one cat moving on towards the crossing while the other is looking away, hesitantly at first, then speeding up and trotting hastily away as soon as it has passed the point nearest to the other cat; or after a while both move off almost simultaneously in the direction from which they originally came.

In all these remote visual-contact (or control) cases, it is very rare indeed for one of the animals to walk right up to the other in order to drive it away, or, if it does not move, to attack it. If, however, the animals suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves face to face, a clash of some sort may result…If the inferior cat has already entered a commonly used passage before the superior cat arrives on the scene, the latter will sit down and wait until the road is clear; if it does not, its superiority may be challenged successfully…Likewise a superior cat will not normally drive away an inferior one which is already occupying the superior cat’s favorite resting place or look-out post.

[Hunting] …They may hunt over the same area at the same time, keeping on an average ~50 yards apart, depending on the ground and the vegetation. They do so deliberately, even when there is no other reason for being so close together. This was particularly obvious in the Welsh farm populations. After collecting their daily milk, the animals walked off one by one to their hunting grounds. Normally they were not fed by the farmers but had to sustain themselves largely by catching and eating rabbits which lived in vast numbers in the hedges bordering the fields. Although rabbits seemed to abound everywhere, it was usual to see two or 3 cats hunting within 30–70 yards of each other, rather than one lone cat.

[Urban gathering] At nightfall there is often something which I can only describe as a social gathering [in Paris]. Males and females come to a meeting-place adjacent to or situated within the fringe of their territories and just sit around. This has no connection with the mating season, which I am excluding from my description throughout. They sit, not far apart—two to 5 yards or even less—some individuals even in actual contact, sometimes licking and grooming each other. There is very little sound, the faces are friendly and only occasionally an ear flattens or a small hiss or growl is heard when an animal closes in too much on a shy member of the gathering. Apart from this there is certainly no general hostility, no threat displays can be seen except perhaps for a tom parading a little just for fun. I could observe this particularly well and on many occasions in the Paris population. The gathering would go on for hours, sometimes (probably as a forewarning of the mating season) all night. But usually by about midnight or shortly after the cats had retired to their respective sleeping quarters. There can be no doubt that these meetings were on a friendly, sociable footing, although members of these same populations could at other times be seen chasing each other wildly or even fighting. Indeed, such an urge for social “togetherness” exists also in those wild species in which, according to all available observations, mutual repulsion is much stronger than it is in domestic cats. They are, therefore better capable of close friendship with humans than with conspecifics.

[Cat hierarchies] …two facts emerged: (1) It is actually possible to find evidence for such a dualism [of two types of social rank]. At the food bowl for example, an absolute rank order is observed. Narrow passages and preferred resting places may, in a sense, belong to top cats, and inferior cats often leave them when the superior one approaches, but if they do not there is no quarrel; and, in particular, the cat already in a passage has the right of way regardless of its status within the absolute hierarchy. Also, there is sometimes a prerogative related to the time of day. Some cats, for example, make full use of the floor for running and playing in the morning, others in the evening, and it is “their” time, when they are superior to all others which happen to come their way, again regardless of their absolute ranking. (2) There is a direct relationship between the balance of absolute and relative hierarchy, and population density. The more crowded the cage is the less relative hierarchy there is. Eventually a despot emerges, “pariahs” appear, driven to frenzy and all kinds of neurotic behavior by continuous and pitiless attack by all the others; the community turns into a spiteful mob. They all seldom relax, they never look at ease, and there is continuous hissing, growling and even fighting. Play stops altogether and locomotion and exercise are reduced to a minimum.

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