Courting
Cats, compared to many other mammals, have a unique courting style. The first step in courtship is the female coming into season, or "heat". Male cats can smell a female cat in heat miles away and therefore seek her out. Males fight mercilessly for the right to be the first to mate with the female. Often she mates with multiple males. It is therefore possible that even if a male cat loses first breeding rights, he can still be the father. This is also the reason that a litter of kittens can have multiple fathers.
Read more about this topic: Cat Behavior
Famous quotes containing the word courting:
“I am about courting a girl I have had but little acquaintance with. How shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and whether she has the virtues I imagine she has?
Answer. Commend her among her female acquaintances.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“What is the student but a lover courting a fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp?”
—Sir William Osler (1849–1919)
“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)