22 THE WILD CAT 



East Africa. It seems to follow that length or 

 thickness of fur cannot be held to be of much 

 value in a question of systematic discrimination. 

 In the patterns, however, shown in the stripes 

 or spots and blotches, to be found on all cats not 

 self-coloured, careful investigation has proved 

 that these are found to be, in practically all 

 cases, divisible into two categories, the * striped ' 

 and the * blotched ' ; and it is by continuing his 

 investigations on these lines that Mr. Pocock 

 comes to the conclusions which are to be found 

 in his interesting paper in the Proceedings of 

 the Zoological Society p , 1907. In comparing 

 the European wild cat (sylvestris) and the 

 Egyptian (pcreata) the resemblances are so 

 many and the distinctions so few that it seems 

 to be questionable whether they can be held to 

 be other than types of the same species differen- 

 tiated, in some degree, by varying climate and 

 other surroundings ; and it is also to be remem- 

 bered that their natural areas meet, so that the 

 two may well have interbred. It is impossible 

 here to reproduce all the arguments and deduc- 

 tions many of them new, and all of them as 

 interesting as able, to be found in Mr. Pocock's 

 paper ; but the result arrived at in the question 

 of the origin of the domestic cat may probably 

 be fairly summarised to this effect, viz. that it is 



