258 Wild Beasts 



human race. Their distinctive characteristics are all 

 strongly marked, and have persisted from a period so 

 incalculably remote, that the Felidcs may in this respect 

 be said to stand by themselves. " We have as yet," 

 remarks A. R. Wallace (" Geographical Distribution of 

 Animals"), "made little approach towards discovering 

 'their origin,' since the oldest forms yet found are 

 typical and highly specialized representatives of a group 

 which is itself the most specialized of the carnivora." No 

 one acquainted with the evidence upon which this state- 

 ment rests is likely to gainsay it, and its meaning is not 

 obscure. The fact carries with it a necessary implication 

 that animals of the species referred to, having followed a 

 definite way of life longer than the rest, are more fit in 

 every way to meet its requirements. 



Perhaps the most striking illustration that could be 

 given of the reality of what has been said, is the small dif- 

 ference actually existing between wild and domesticated 

 cats. Domestication is so great and radical a change from 

 the feral state, that the entire constitution of an animal is 

 affected, — mind and body, temper, intelligence, form, 

 color, fertility and physical capacity, are all modified. But 

 it is not thorough enough to do away with the traits engen- 

 dered in the FelidcB, and therefore it happens that after 

 thousands of years, the house cat varies from the wild one so 

 little in important and distinctive characteristics. Cattle and 

 sheep were domesticated before the dispersion of the Aryan 

 tribes ; linguistic evidence places that fact beyond ques- 

 tion. Cats, however, though introduced into Europe from 

 Asia, as was the case also with the horse, ass, and goat, 



