CHAPTEE XIV. 



THE cat's HEXICOLOGY. 



§ 1. Every animal has definite relations to the various influences 

 which on all sides surround and act upon it, and which constitute 

 what is called its "environment." Every animal has existed for a 

 certain definite time and within certain limits of space. It has been 

 favoured, or the reverse, by the physical forces (that is, by conditions 

 of climate, including temperature, moisture, &c.), and its existence 

 has been related in various ways to that of other living creatures. 

 The science of Hexicology is (as was shortly stated at the end of the 

 first chapter) the study of all these more or less complex relations. 



§ 2. The cat-group, Feiidce, has now to be considered as thus 

 related to its environment, and we may consider first its relations 



with PHYSICAL CONDITIONS. 



As to heat, that the domestic cat loves warmth is what everyone 

 must have observed. Almost all the larger cats, and the great bulk 

 of the smaller kinds, are inhabitants of the warmest regions of the 

 globe. JN^o cat dwells in the extreme north with the polar bear, 

 while no region is too hot for certain species of Fe/is. 



Yet we have seen that the Ounce and Felts scripta are dwellers 

 on the snowy heights of Thibet, and that the tiger ranges to the 

 Amoor river, while the group of lynxes — the caracal e'xcepted — are 

 northern forms, two varieties, possibly two species, being found in 

 Scandinavia and Canada. Moreover, in earlier times, existing 

 species, such as the lion, extended into colder climes than they now 

 inhabit, while in the earliest prehistoric human period that great cat, 

 Fclis sj^elea, was an inhabitant of England, protected perhaps by a 

 very ample furry coat, such as that which protects the Ounce of 

 Thibet to-day. Yet the differences as to fur are after all very small 

 compared with the differences as to climate. Therefore, the feline race 

 being thus able to live in countries of very different temperatures, 

 must have a considei-able internal power of regulating and sustain- 

 ing the temperature of the body, and concomitantly with this faculty 

 wc find that no cat falls into a Avinter sleep, i.e., no cat hibernates. 



As to lujht., though the great majority of cats dwell in climates 

 where daylight is intense, yet they mostly remain in repose while 

 the sun is above the horizon, and prowl about in twilight or at night. 



Still certain kinds are diurnal, and from observations made at the 



