TABBY GATS 57 



comes about that the National Cat Club gives a 

 quite subsidiary importance to markings as a basis 

 for distinguishing domestic breeds, preferring length 

 of coat, shortness of tail, tint of hair, and other com- 

 paratively trivial features. 



Apart from Siamese, Manx, and one or two other 

 less important breeds, domestic cats are classified 

 under two headings, namely, " long-haired," other- 

 wise called " Persians " or " Angoras," and " short- 

 haired " or ordinary cats, both long-haired and short- 

 haired being further subdivided by colour into blacks, 

 whites, blues, smokes, reds, creams, tabbies, and the 

 like. Thus the pattern is merely regarded as equiva- 

 lent to colour and of less value than length of coat or 

 absence of tail ; nor does it appear that any stress is 

 laid upon the difference above alluded to between 

 the two types of tabby. 



The real importance of pattern is shown by a study 

 of wild species of Cats which zoologists comprehen- 

 sively group together as Felis. Tigers, for example, 

 are always striped, and leopards always spotted. 

 The stripes in the one and the spots in the other may 

 vary in number, but the pattern in each species 

 remains substantially the same. Not so the hair. 

 Mongolian tigers and North Chinese leopards differ 

 strikingly from their tropical kin in the length and 

 thickness of the Winter coat. The difference is not so 

 marked as between a thoroughbred so-called Persian 

 Cat and an ordinary Cat. Nevertheless, the fact 

 proves that the length of the coat is a much more 

 variable feature in Cats than the pattern. 



