224 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



common to both sides of the Atlantic, the Canadian and 

 north European lynxes being probably but varieties of 

 one species. America is not so rich in species of the cat 

 tribe as is the Old World, nor do its largest kinds, 

 the puma and jaguar, equal the largest kinds of Asia 

 and Africa. Strange to say, the West Indian Islands, 

 although some of them, as Cuba and Hayti, seem 

 admii^ably suited to shelter and support species of the 

 cat family, are entirely destitute of them. The same is 

 the case with the great island of Madagascar (in spite of 

 its forests, with their numerous animal population), and 

 also with New Guinea, New Zealand, and the whole of 

 Australia. America, north of Arkansas and Louisiana, 

 has the lynx and the puma. Europe has two species of 

 lynx and the wild cat. It might be supposed that the 

 domestic cat is simply the wild cat tamed, but it is 

 probably a descendant of the Egyptian cat, which was 

 domesticated in very ancient times. Egypt, as the 

 gi'anary of the ancient world, might well have been the 

 country in which it was originally tamed. It was 

 certainly domesticated there 1300 years before Christ, 

 and there is a painting in the Egyptian Gallery of the 

 British Museum of a tabby cat which seems to be aiding 

 a man in the capture of birds. The Goddess Pasht, or 

 Bubastis, the Goddess of Cats, was, under the Roman 

 Empire, represented with a cat's head, and a temple at 

 Beni Hassan dedicated to her is as old as 1500 b.c, w^hile 

 behind it are pits containing a multitude of cat mummies. 

 The cat was an emblem of the sun to the Egyptians, and 

 its eyes were supposed to vary with the course of that 

 luminary, and it is a fact that the eyes of at least some cats 

 do really change colour. Herodotus relates extraordinary 

 stories of the veneration in which this animal w^as held 

 by the Egyptians. He tells us that when a cat died a 



