200 RABBITS, CATS, AND CAVIES 



the specimens which have come under my notice docile, 

 good-tempered and sociable if they take my advice, will 

 either keep no other variety of cat, long or short-haired, 

 or quite isolated and out of sight of the Manx, or they may 

 suffer in the same way as I did. 



At comparatively few shows are classes provided for 

 this variety, which has therefore usually to be entered in 

 the " Any Other Variety Short Hair," where it does not 

 stand much chance of getting into the first three, unless 

 exceptionally good in size and markings. 



It is curious that the colours in this variety seem 

 somewhat limited, as although I have seen a great many 

 of them, I never remember to have seen any but tortoise- 

 shell, and very few of that shade ; white, and that only 

 my own male ; black, perhaps the most numerous of all as 

 far as my experience goes ; black and white, and grey- 

 striped Tabby. I am not prepared to say that no others 

 are ever seen, but that I do not remember seeing them 

 either in Manx or Any Other Variety classes. 



Many of those shown fail in their tails, some having 

 an inch or more, whereas the tail proper should be absent 

 and represented by only a tuft of hair at the extremity of 

 the spine, though some, I believe, pure bred have had a 

 tiny thin apology for a tail without bone. 



I may perhaps mention that I have bred a great many 

 of the Old English sheep dogs, which I am glad to see 

 have now become so deservedly popular, and have had 

 litters with nearly the whole of them born without a 

 particle of tail, proving that although some of their 

 ancestors (as I happen to know has been done with even 



