Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!ames!lll-winken!uunet!microsoft!gordonl
From: gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon Letwin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: a cat's purr
Summary: cat purrs
Keywords: evolution, feline
Message-ID: <5831@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 27 May 89 22:08:14 GMT
References: <2765@scolex.sco.COM> <5587@cs.utexas.edu>
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 13

In article <5587@cs.utexas.edu>, turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
> 
> I have observed cat's purring when they are obviously not
> content, for example, when very sick.  Perhaps rather than
> contentedness, it indicates sociability: a willingness or desire
> to be around other cats or cat surrogates (this means you.)
> 
> Russell

Desmond Morris, in a book titled something like "cat watching", suggests
that purring is a cat's way to solicit "nice attention".  This is
pretty much what Mr. Turpin was saying - that cats purr when they
want you to be nice to them, or to comfort them, etc.