the scientific cat

This list of what separates a cat from inert matter comes from a scientific work of the early 1900's, and it tickled me. Please go down the list and see if what you have is a cat or some other undifferentiated protoplasm:

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§ 5. The contrasts which exist, then, between the cat, Considered Merely As A Living Being, and the mass of non-living inorganic things may be summed up as follows:

(1) It is bounded by curved lines and surfaces.
(2) Its section is heterogeneous.
(3) It consists almost entirely of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, and largely of protoplasm.
(4) It grows by intussusception.
(5) It needs a certain moderate heat.
(6) It needs definite supply of moisture.
(7) It needs food.
(8) It effects a process of continued gaseous interchange.
(9) It tends to carry on a cycle of changes when exposed to certain fixed conditions.

-- from The cat: an introduction to the study of backboned animals, especially mammals, St. George Jackson Mivart (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900), p. 445.