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Tails communicate, too. They may possibly help a cat right itself in midair, but they aren’t for balancing with; they’re for conversation, like a dog’s tail. The vertebrae of the cat, from skull to tail tip, are flexibly connected so the cat can contract and expand its length, curve its back upward as well as down, or ripple it along the spinal line, and my mother’s cat Tadger can roll up his tail like a stuffed anchovy. The language of the tail raises questions about the tailless cats that turn up here and there through history; are they semimute in the cat world, or have they found another, invisible way to communicate, maybe with a wider range of scents?

A kitten running to greet its mother carries the tail straight up but relaxed at the end, so the tip flutters like a waved hand. In later life it will use this position to greet its human and to trot in to dinner. Put the dish on the floor, and if the food is acceptable the tail drops slowly until it lies straight out and flat on the floor, ready to be stepped on, while the cat eats. If the food is no good the tail drops only to half mast while the cat makes scratching motions on the floor around the dish, meaning that this smells so foul that it will bring enemies from far and wide unless we bury it, or, metaphorically, this shit belongs in the litter box. Some sources maintain that the cat is trying to bury it for safekeeping, to return for it later, but my cats never go back.

The fluffed tail held up stiff clear to the tip is a threat; up and arched forward it’s defensive. Then there’s the inverted U, an anxious sign seen in the pursued cat during a rough game of tag, and the fluffed inverted U, half offense, half defense.

These matters are pretty well standardized, though as usual with cats, not universal; I knew a pair of white cats who always carried their tails resting comfortably between their ears, and what other cats made of this unorthodoxy I can’t imagine. Turkish Angoras do the same, and presumably understand each other.

Fur and tail combined with the hundred variations of body posture, of ears, whiskers, pupil dilation, and verbal comments make up an intercat vocabulary not demonstrably smaller than that of the average American high school student. Making friends is another matter.

Friendships between cat and cat are a luxury, born when the cat of civilization no longer needs solitary hunting grounds in order to survive. Cat friendships are a gift we can give them, a subsidiary of guaranteed meals and sexual cancellation.

Hunting animals are never automatically at ease with each other the way plant-eaters are. Cows in a field, antelope on the plain, finches in a flock, need each other deeply and mutely, and except for the squabbles of mating season draw great comfort from knowing there’s another of the same kind around. They think communally, a single idea flowing like water through the group. On catching sight of a neighbor grazing nearby they don’t need to have any special reaction or establish any specific relationship between themselves and this other; a cow is unsurprised to see another cow, and never has to ask if this cow is stronger or braver than she is, or is chewing a better bite of grass. Either there is grass to eat or there is no grass; one doesn’t compete for grass.

Meat-eaters need more space, and their food comes singly, meal by meal. An eagle can’t afford to ignore another eagle nesting next door, and a cat moving into the hunting grounds is a rival cat. Among cats every chance meeting is an encounter, and needs alert consideration; a cat pretending to ignore another cat is playacting. He looks at the sky, he licks a perfectly clean spot on his side, the feline equivalent of shoving your hands in your pockets and whistling. He yawns, and almost, but not quite, closes his eyes; let the other cat make a move and all the lights snap on at once.

Outdoors, cats have a home territory, to be defended, and beyond it a home range, an area full of special spots for hunting or resting or