EGYPTIAN CAT.—Felis Maniculdta. 
The species of Cat which was thus gloritied by these ghastly honours of the charnel- 
house, is the animal which is represented in the engraving. It is supposed to be the 
original stock from which descended the race of domestie Cats which found their home 
by ae Egyptian’s hearth, and were so piously cherished by that strange, intellectual, 
inexplicable people. It is indigenous to Nubia, and has been found on the western side 
of the Nile, inhabiting a district which was well furnished with brushwood, and broken 
up into rocky ground. 
The general colour of this animal is something like that of the Pampas Cat, but not 
so clear or bright, as a brownish-grey tint is w ashed over the white portions. On the 
back, the colour is deeper than on the remainder of the body. The under portions of the 
body and inside of the limbs are a greyish-white, the grey disappearing under the throat 
and about the cheeks, leaving those parts of a pure white. Mz any streaks and dashes of 
black, or ochry-yellow, are spread over the body and limbs, two: of the lighter stripes 
encircling the neck. Its eye is bright golden yellow. 
The Eeyptian Cat is about the size of an ordinary domestic cat, being nine or ten 
inches in height, and two teet five inches in length; the tail is about nine inches long. 
Frew of the Felide are so widely spread, or so generally known as the WiLD Car. It 
is found not only in this country, but over nearly the whole of Europe, and has been 
seen in Northern Asia, and Nepaul. 
In England the Wild Cat is almost extinct, having been gradually exterminated by 
civilization and the conversion of forests and waste land into arable ground. It now very 
seldom occurs that a real Wild Cat is found even in an English forest, for the creature 
appears to be driven gradually northwards, finding its last fortress among the bleak and 
barren ranges of the Scottish hills. In Scotland it still lingers, but its numbers seem to 
diminish rapidly, and the time is not very far distant w hen the Wild Cat will be as 
entirely extinct as the wolf. 
It is true that many so-called Wild Cats are found in the snares set by the* game- 
keeper to protect the pheasants, hares, and partridges under his charge, but in ninety- 
nine cases out of every hundred, these captured robbers are nothing more than domesticated 
cats which have shaken off the trammels of their civilization, and have taken to a sav age 
