Scientific Intelligence — Zoology. 199 



best attributes of the two races from whose admixture they sprang ; 

 namely, the intelligence and mental activity of the European, and the 

 climatic adaptation of the native,* and they are also in general dis- 

 tingushed for their fertility, when paired with each other, so that 

 they are rapidly rising into numerical importance. On the other hand, 

 this very intermixture, taking place as it usually does between an 

 European father and a native mother, tends to diminish the number 

 of the native population in a very remarkable manner ; for there is 

 now a large amount of evidence, that when a native female of the 

 American or Polynesian races has once been impregnated by an 

 European male, she thenceforth loses all power of conception from 

 intercourse with the male of her own race. This was first pointedly 

 stated by that very intelligent traveller, the Count de Strzelecki, who 

 has lived much among different races of aborigines, the natives of 

 Canada, of the United States, of California, Mexico, the South 

 American Republics, the Marquesas, Sandwich, and Society Islands, 

 New Zealand, and Australia, and who affirms that in hundreds of 

 cases of this kind into which he has inquired, and of which he pre- 

 serves memoranda, there has not been a single exception. f 



As regards Australia and New Zealand, this statement, strange 

 as it seems at first sight, has been fully borne out by independent 

 evidence ; and it ofi'ers the most complete explanation yet given, of 

 the very rapid decrease in the native population of the various islands 

 of Oceania, in which European races have been long establishefi.: — 

 Dr Carpenter. 



19. Feline Hybrids. — ^Dr Ruppell " decided that all our varieties 

 of the domestic cat were derived from one species (Felis manicu- 

 lata):' 



Fischer and Schinz, who are among the latest authors on synop- 

 tical mammalogy, refer the above species (which is yet wild in Nubia, 

 and appears to have been the parent of the common Egyptian house 

 cat), and the domestic cat of Europe, to different species ; and 

 Fischer further calls the F. maniculata " the parent of some varieties 

 of the domestic cat."]: 



Temminck, after admitting the Egyptian species as the common 

 ancestor of our house cats, adds, that "it is altogether probable 

 that the crossing of the Egyptian race with the wild one of our 

 forests may have given rise to an intermediate breed,"** but which, 

 he adds, it would be impossible to prove by demonstrable evidence. 

 Again, *' It appears to me probable that our house cats are derived 

 from Egypt ; but that the original race of Russia, known by the 



* This is well seen in the case of the descendants of the mutineers of the 

 Bounty and of Tahitian women, who now occupy Pitcairn's Island. 



t See the Count de Strzelecki's Physical Description of New South Wales 

 and Van Diemen's Land, p. 345-347. 



I Synop. Mamm., p. 207. — " Non dubium hano speciem esse matrem varita^ 

 tatum quarundam Felis domesticae." 



