The movements of the cat mandible were recorded by cineradiography while the animals were fed on foods of varying physical characteristics. Each of the jaw-movement cycles, making up a sequence from food ingestion to deglutition, was divided into 4 phases on the basis of regularly occurring and sequential velocity changes: fast close (FC), slow close (SC), slow open (SO), and fast open (FO). A basic jaw-movement profile with a long SO phase, typified by lapping, was associated with a food-transport mechanism within the mouth. The FO/FC complex was an additional component elicited by the presence of solid or semisolid food in the mouth. The separate class of chewing cycles (those having short SO phases and a large FO/FC complex), which occurred only when solid food was in the region of the cheek teeth, may result from the operation of a set of reflexes arising largely from the stimulation of mucosal afferents in that part of the mouth.