A TORTOISE-SHELL WILD CAT. 507 



after the collapse of the Italian republics.* Thus, without ban- 

 ishing the devils of freedom, the reformers, moved to such endless 

 efforts to keep swept and garnished, evoke only the devils of 

 despotism, which are immeasurably more ferocious and destruc- 

 tive. 



A TORTOISE-SHELL WILD CAT. 



BY WILLIAM H. BALLOU. 



THE cat family has given naturalists quite as much trouble as 

 it has the ordinary citizen in his efforts to repose at night. 

 The wild type (or types) of the domestic animal has never been 

 located, although various views have been advanced to account 

 for the household pet. As far back as we can distinguish man 

 arising on the horizon of history, we find him accompanied by 

 certain domestic animals, the origins of which are quite as in- 

 volved in problems of transition conditions as is man himself. 

 The late Dr. J. S. Newberry was wont to exhibit to me a mummi- 

 fied alleged cat from Egypt, to show that the domestic animal of 

 the Egyptians was really a civet. The late Prof. Cope thought 

 that perhaps all living species of wild cats had been defined, until 

 Felis bracatta was sent him from Brazil ; he thought it probable 

 that there were no more extinct Felidce, to be discovered until, 

 just before his death, a pocket containing several new types was 

 opened in a Philadelphia quarry not far from his laboratory. 



I have always taken an interest in the origin of the domestic 

 cat, not the least diminished by these two lamented paleontol- 

 ogists, who could find no technical basis for any theories that 

 have been advanced. No wild cat has been tamed in modern 

 times, and years of confinement and kindness have wholly failed 

 to soften the savage nature of these denizens of the forest and 

 jungle, some representatives of which will instantly attack man 

 or beast, oblivious to overwhelming odds, and fight to the last 

 gasp. I have always inclined to the multi- origin of various types 

 of domestic cats, holding that wild types in various parts of the 

 earth gave origin to the domestic types therein found. It is im- 

 possible for me to reconcile to a common existing wild ancestor 

 the domestic cat of the Isle of Malta, the stub-tailed Manx cat 

 of the Isle of Man, and the tortoise-shell cat of Brazil all well- 

 known domestic types. 



It was therefore with great interest that I viewed in the late 



* " Tyrannicide was extolled as a patriotic virtue. . . . Public honors were paid to Dona- 

 tello's statue of Judith the tyrannicide, erected in Florence, with the inscription '"Exemplum 

 salutis publicce cives posuere ! ' While such a spirit prevailed in society, tyrants lived in 

 constant dread of assassination." (May, Democracy in Europe, vol. i, p. 323.) 



