A friend asked on Facebook why there were no documents penned by animals. He claimed that ‘not a single one was to my knowledge written by an animal other than a human’. I disagree. Here are some notable quotes I have collected on the subject.
‘A cat could no more write a thesis on the plight of man than a man could on the condition of being a cat’
On the Nature of Existence, Jeramiah Bullock, 1808
'Show me an elephant who can record in a book his thoughts. I warrant he will run out of thoughts before he runs out of paper.'
The Natural Order of the World, Rutherford Mirams, 1899
‘The Kangaroo, upon seeing this treatise, kicked up quite tearing it in two. This fact notwithstanding, he was declared by the court to have made his mark upon it and in doing so, accepting its terms.’
Triumph over the Savage, Kip McKinnon, 1800
'Five times round the table flew the bird, each time stopping to dip his beak into the ink. He would then drag it over the surface of the blotting paper in a quite comical manner. In doing this he made parralel lines upon it. He would not stop until a rifle was fetched and the bird dispatched.'
The History of the Charachuse Family, Count Charachuse VII, 1929
‘…one chapter of which, it is reported, was penned by a monkey, being kept for amusement by the Earl of Bath…’
Western Almanack, 1766
‘And so, by deception, the member for Rutland introduced the entire bill, complete with it the clause authored by his snake. By the ‘ayes’ of the house, the clerk was duly obliged to sign into law and copy out, onto vellum, the act in its entirity. It was remarked that the inscription of the ‘snake clause’ followed the pattern of the snake’s marks even if we could not say whether or not the meaning had been conveyed’
A History of Tyrrany in the Houses at Westminster, 1856
'Around that time T. S. Elliot was said to keep a crow in his bathroom, to be his muse, and to tap out the metre to which the poet twisted his words'
Poetry?, Christabelle Cussins, 1966
The bird marketh upon paper with his mouth, with ink: by the very point of his nose writeth he. Works of writing of high accomplishment proceedeth from him and princes and men may read it alike as though it had been the work of a scholar.
Unknown document fragment, 1669
I think that proves conclusively that animals can write, and have written documents.