Invented in 1799 by the Frenchman Joseph
Jérôme de Lalande from stars between Antlia and
Hydra. Lalande did not himself depict the constellation on any
globe or chart but suggested it to Bode, who first showed it on
his Uranographia atlas of 1801.
In his book Star
Names, Their Lore and Meaning the
American historian R. H. Allen quotes Lalande as saying:
“I am very fond of cats. I will let this figure scratch
on the chart. The starry sky has worried me quite enough in my
life, so that now I can have my joke with it.” Allen gave
no reference, but his source was probably Ludwig Ideler’s
Untersuchungen über
den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Sternnamen (Berlin, 1809),
p. 367. (I am grateful to Robert van Gent of Utrecht
University, Netherlands, for pointing this out.) A more
accurate translation of the German might be:
“I love cats very much. I will have
this picture engraved on the star map. The starry sky has made
me tired enough all my life to allow me to have a little fun
now.”
Ideler noted that the original quotation
appeared in Allgemeine geographische
Ephemeriden, vol. 3 (1799), p. 623.
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A grumpy-looking Felis on the Uranographia of Johann Bode.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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