INHERITANCE OF COAT-COLOR IN CATS 561 
Dr. A. Nehring (’87) believed that the cat has a dual origin, 
being descended from a domestic Chinese cat and from the 
Egyptian cat, Felis maniculata. The origin of the striped pat- 
tern is easily traced to the European wildcat or to the African 
wildeat. Of the blotched type Richard Lydekker (Encyclo- 
paedia Brittanica) says: 
It may be suggested that the blotched tabby type represents Dr. 
Nehring’s presumed Chinese element in the cat’s parentage, and that 
the missing wild stock may be one of the numerous phases of the 
leopard-cat (F. bengalensis), in some of which an incipient spiral 
arrangement of the markings may be noticed on the shoulder. 
The attempt is made by many authors to trace all variations in 
morphology and color to some wild ancestor. To do so appears 
to me unnecessary, as all such variations might occur under 
domestication. The strictly domestic color variations in the 
cat may be considered maltese, white, white-spotting, yellow, 
and Siamese dilution. Such variations, if they occur in nature, 
appear to be blotted out, as they are certainly not characteristic 
of any wild species. They occur in numerous domestic ani- 
mals and may be said to be variations by which domestic species 
‘mimic’ each other.‘ 
mesticated examples of this cat have been given many names, of which torquata 
is the best known and angorensis or striata possibly the oldest. . . . . It 
closely resembles in pattern two existing species, namely, the so-called Egyptian 
cat (F. ocreata) and the European wildcat (F. sylvestris).” 
Pocock thinks that the blotched or catus type is derived from some extinct, 
probably Pleistocene cat of western Europe. 
Pocock uses the term torquata for striped and catus for blotched, which is 
just the reverse of many other authors. 
There is, further, a so-called Felis torquata of India that is considered by 
some to be related to the spotted desert cat (F. ornata). 
Inasmuch as I have wished to name genetic factors rather than species of 
cats, I have discarded the Latin names and have adopted the English words 
blotched and striped, in regard to which there can be no confusion. 
4 By the use of the term ‘mimic’ I wish merely to denote what inmy estima- 
tion underlies many at least of the phenomena which biologists have attempted 
to explain by the mimicry hypothesis. There are only a limited number of ways 
in which an organism may vary. Thus a mammalian coat may vary in dilution 
and distribution of the pigments black, brown, and yellow. No other pigments 
can be developed. 
Numerous cases of resemblance, moreover, are in all probability due to 
homologous factorial differences, even in widely separated species. Metz (’16) 
THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY, VOL. 25, NO. 2 
