DOMESTIC CATS 



433 



other yellow, this feature being especially admired in white Persian cats. As is 

 now well known, white cats, with blue eyes are usually deaf, this deafness being 

 probably attributable to the lack of dark pigment characterizing the eyes also ex- 

 tending to the ears ; such dark pigment being, in some mysterious manner, con- 

 nected with the sense of hearing. 



The pure-bred tortoise-shell cat a race which, by the way, seems now much 

 more rare in England than formerly should be of an orange-fawn color, irregularly 

 blotched with black, without any mixture of white. Such cats are almost inva- 

 riably females, although according to Professor Mivart, there is at least one good 

 instance of a pure " tortoise-shell torn." The male of this breed is the sandy cat, and 

 the writer above mentioned comments upon the extreme peculiarity in this difference 



THE ANGORA CAT. 



(One-seventh natural size.) 



of the coloration in the two sexes of this breed, the males and females of all wild 

 cats, with the single exception of the South American jaguarondi (in which the 

 female is the brighter of the two), being colored alike. Occasionally, however, 

 female sandy cats are to be met with, while sandy-and-white and tortoise-shell-and- 

 white cats may be of either sex. The so-called "blue" or Carthusian cat is 

 characterized by its long and silky hair being of a uniform grayish-blue color, while 

 the lips and the soles of the feet are black. 



Turning to Asiatic cats, it has already been mentioned that many of those of 

 India have more or less distinctly spotted coats like their wild compatriots, such 

 coloration being almost unknown in Europe. The most celebrated of all the Asiatic 



