FELIS CATUS. 73 
the lower jaw, almost identical in size and shape, but re- 
taining the three molar teeth, from the cave of Kent's 
Hole, Torquay. 
The Essex jaw of the Wild Cat, which was found in the 
same deposit that has yielded so many remains of the 
Mammoth, was in the usual condition of the bones of that 
period. And the specimen from Kent’s Hole, now in the 
British Museum, precisely accords, in colour and chemical 
composition, with the fossils of the extinct quadrupeds from 
the same cave. The outlines of the premolar teeth pre- 
served in this jaw are added above the corresponding empty 
sockets of the jaw figured, with which they quite agree in 
size; and both are undistinguishable from the analogous 
parts of the still existing species of Wild Cat. We seem, 
therefore, here to have another instance of the survival, by 
a smaller and weaker species, of those geological changes 
which have been accompanied by the extirpation of the 
larger and more formidable animals of the same genus. 
Our household Cat is probably a domesticated variety of 
the same species which was contemporary with the spe- 
lean Bear, Hyena, and Tiger. It appears, at least from 
an observation recorded by M. de Blainville, that grimal- 
kin cannot be the descendant of the Egyptian Cat, as M. 
Temminck supposed. The first deciduous inferior molar 
tooth of the Felis maniculata has a relatively thicker crown, 
and is supported by three roots; whilst the corresponding 
tooth in both the domestic and wild Cats of Europe has a 
thinner crown and two roots. The tail of the domestic Cat 
is more tapering, and a little longer than in the wild Cat, 
but the extent to which this part is shewn, by a curious 
propagated variety of tail-less Cat, to be susceptible of 
modification, ought to warn us against inferring specific 
distinction from slight differences in the proportions of the 
tail. 
