THE CAT TRIBE 



SHORT-HAIRED TABBY 



This is perhaps the most fatnoui cat notu living. It hat won no leis than 200 prizes 



The nearest to perfection 



perhaps, and yet at the same 



time extremely soft and finely 



made, is the BLUE CAT, rare 



in England as an English cat, 



but common in most other 



countries, and called in 



America the Maltese Cat for 



fashion's sake probably, since 



it is too widely distributed 



there to be localised as of 



foreign origin. It is out in 



the mining districts and 



agricultural quarters, right 



away from the beaten tracks 



of humanity, where the most 



wonderful breeds of cats 



develop in America ; and 



caravan showmen have told me that at one time it was quite a business for them to carry cats 



into these wildernesses, and sell them to rough, hardy miners, who dealt out death to each 



other without hesitation in a quarrel, but who softened to the appeal of an animal which 



reminded them of homelier times. 



One man told me that upon one occasion he sold eight cats at an isolated mining township 



in Colorado, and some six days' journey farther on he was caught up by a man on horseback 



from the township, who had ridden hard to overtake the menagerie caravan, with the news that 



one of the cats had climbed a monster pine-tree, and that all the other cats had followed in his 



wake ; food and drink had been placed in plenty at the foot of the tree, but that the cats had 



been starving, frightened out of their senses, for three days, and despite all attempts to reach 



them they had only climbed higher and higher out of reach into the uppermost and most 



dangerous branches of the pine. The showman hastened 

 with his guide across country to the township, only to 

 find that in the interval one bright specimen of a man 

 belonging to the village had suggested felling the tree 

 and so rescuing the cats from the pangs of absolute 

 starvation, should they survive the ordeal. A dynamite 

 cartridge had been used to blast the roots of the pine, 

 and a rope attached to its trunk had done the rest and 

 brought the monster tree to earth, only, however, at the 

 expense of all the cats, for not one survived the 

 tremendous fall and shaking. A sad and tearful pro- 

 cession followed the remains of the cats to their hastily 

 dug grave, and thereafter a bull mastiff took the place 

 of the cats in the township, an animal more in character 

 with the lives of its inhabitants. 



Analogous to this case of the traveling menageries, 

 we have the great variety of blues, silvers, and whites 

 which are characteristic of Russia. There is a vast table- 

 land of many thousands of miles in extent, intersected by 

 caravan routes to all the old countries of the ancients, 

 and it is not astonishing to hear of attempts being made 



LONG-HAIRED ORANGE 



A good tpecimen of this "variety is always large and 

 finely furred 



