202 NATURAL HISTORY. 



the hand in any dark place : their eyes shine in thf 

 dark, almost like diamonds, and reflect outwardly, 

 during the night, the light which they may he said to 

 have imhihed during the day. 



In this climate, we know hut one species of the 

 wild cat ; and it appears from the testimony of travel- 

 lers, that this species is found in almost all climates 

 without any great variety : there were some of them 

 on the continent of the New World hefore it was dis- 

 covered. A huntsman carried one which he had 

 found in the woods to Christopher Columbus : this 

 cat was of the common size, the hair of a dark grey, 

 with the tail very long, and very strong : there were 

 some of the same sort of wild cats in Peru, though 

 they had no tame ones ; and there are some in Canada, 

 in the country of the Illinese, &c. They have heen 

 seen in several parts of Africa, as in Guinea, at the 

 Gold Coast, at Madagascar, where the original in- 

 habitants had even domestic cats. At the Cape of 

 Good Hope, Kolbe says, there are also some wild 

 cats of a blue colour ; and these blue, or rather slate- 

 coloured cats, are found again in Asia. 



In general it may be remarked, that, of all the cli- 

 mates of the inhabited earth, those of Spain and Syria 

 are the most favourable to the beautiful varieties of 

 nature. The sheep, goats, dogs, cats, rabbits, &c. of 

 those countries have the finest wool, the most beauti- 

 ful and the longest hair, the most agreeable and the 

 most varied colours : the colour of the wild cat, and 

 its hair, like those of most other wild animals, are ra- 

 ther coarse. When tamed, the latter becomes more 

 soft, the former more variegated -, and in the favoura- 

 ble climate of Chorasan and Syria, the latter becomes 

 longer, finer, more copious, the former uniformly soft- 



