If you will have some sport with a Cat, then get a little Bel, such as the tame Hawkes have at their legs, and tye the Bell something hard at the end of the Cats tayle, and let her go, she feeling of her tayle smart, and hearing of the Bel gingle, she will run up and down as if she were mad, flying against the walls and windowes.

Then if she can, she will get into some hole to hide her selfe, but when she wags her tayle never so little, then out she comes, and is as mad as before, and never will rest quiet till it be taken off, or she can get it off her selfe.

There are other listed methods involving putting their feet into melted pitch in walnut shells and similar “methods”.

Illustration from Edward Topsell in The History of Four-Footed Beasts published in 1607.
John White in A Rich Cabinet with Variety of Inventions via Ask the Past.