78 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



who have acquired skill and fame in 

 original t:cientihc research. On the 

 other hand, there are some men who 

 see not the mechanics but rather the 

 poetry and the artistic aspects of na- 

 ture. The boy and the man want to 

 see the wheels go round, the girl likes 

 the watch for its usefulness and 

 beauty. 



Of Cats' Coats. 



R. I. Pocock, the superintendent of 

 the London Zoological Society's Gar- 

 dens, points out that there are reall> 

 two different sorts of cats, though they 

 both come in all colors. One is the 

 common striped tabby, with narrow 

 wavy markings running crosswise of 

 the body. These stripes are sometimes 

 slightly thickened, or they may break 

 up into spots. But the pattern is al- 

 ways the same and recognizable at a 

 glance. 



The other sort is cpiite different and 

 much more uncommon. Instead of the 

 many narrow stripes lying in the di- 

 rection of the ribs, there are a few 

 wide irregular blotches, at least three 

 of which run lengthwise of the body, 

 across the ribs. These give the pecu- 

 liar "horseshoe," "spiral," or "target ■ 

 pattern. Besides this, there is a well- 

 marked band on each side -f the back- 

 bone, and a curious diamond-shaped 

 area on the back of the neck, where 

 the five narrow head stripes are left 

 out. All this is quite distinct, and 

 quite unlike the pattern of the common 

 striped tabby. 



Where this pattern came from, no- 

 body knows. The common tabby is 

 descended from the ancient Egyptian 

 cat, which the Pharaohs used to ven- 

 erate when alive and embalm when 

 dead. This also had the tabby pattern. 

 So, too, has the European wild cat. 

 But no known sort of cat, tiger, lynx, 

 or anything of the kind has the other, 

 "blotched" pattern. 



Mr. Pocock suggests also that an- 

 ciently, in Europe, long before the ad- 

 vent of civilized man or the beginnings 

 of history, there were various sorts of 

 wild cats besides the single one that 

 has survived to the present day. We 

 know these only by their bones. Their 

 coats may have been anything. One or 

 more of them may have been a 

 blotched tabby, whose coat pattern 

 still survives. 



Greatness and Early Marriage. 



Casper L. Redfield of Chicago is of 

 the opinion that all the eminent persons 

 of history are from the late-marrying, 

 slow-breeding stocks which have three 

 generations or less to the century; 

 while the great majority of mankind, 

 who marry early and have four gener- 

 ations to the century produce only 

 mediocrities. 



To test his theory, Mr. Redfield de- 

 posited two hundred dollars with the 

 treasurer of the American Genetic As- 

 sociation, which the Association might 

 keep if any of its members, (several of 

 whom have expressed opinion contrary 

 to his own) could meet the following 

 challenge : 



(i) Half the sum for a single case 

 among the two or three thousand 

 persons known to history for their in- 

 tellectual powers, where the eminent 

 individual was born within a century 

 of the average birth date of his sixteen 

 great-great-gfrandparents ; or in other 

 words, was the product of breeding 

 four generations to the century. Three 

 examples, counting male ancestors 

 only, would also win the wager. 



(2) The other half for a single case 

 where a man of the highest grade, such 

 as Aristotle, Franklin, or Darwin, — of 

 whom there are some two or three 

 hundred known to history — whose male 

 forbears were even in the three-gene- 

 rations-to-the-century class. For it is 

 a part of Mr. Redfield's theory that the 

 highest types of ability can be produced 

 only at the rate of two-and-a-fraction 

 generations to the century in place of 

 the four of common mortals. 



The offer printed in the Journal of 

 the Association stood for nearly a year, 

 and the time limit has just expired. 

 Various persons, among them several 

 expert genealogists, took up the gage. 

 But nobody was able to score, and the 

 Association has returned the funds. 



As the case now stands, therefore, the 

 persons who make civilization are the 

 offspring of late marriages ; while, to 

 quote Mr. Redfield, the thirty-three 

 states which permit legal unions be- 

 tween boys from fifteen to nineteen and 

 girls from thirteen to seventeen, are en- 

 couraging the rapid generations which 

 "lead to the production of mental and 

 moral defectives." 



