CHAPTER IV. 



THE CAT. 



AMILIAR to all as is the domeftic 

 cat, a number of interefting queftions 

 are involved in its early hiftory. A 

 diftinguifhed biologift has recently 

 taken it as the type of the felid<e, and filled a 

 goodly volume on it without by any means 

 exhaufting the fubject. 1 The origin of the large 

 family of cats, both fofTil and living fpecies, is 

 traced in geologic time by Lyell and Owen to the 

 Pliocene Period, when, together with the canidtf^ 

 cats alfo came into being. ProfefTor Owen enume- 

 rates as foffil fpecies F. Spel<ea, great cave tiger, 

 whofe remains have been found in Kent's Hole 

 and elfewhere ; F. Pardoides, of which one tooth 

 was found by Mr. Lyell in the Red Crag, New- 

 bourn, in 1839; F. Cat us, the wild cat, probably 

 identical with the prefent wild cat of the north ; 

 and a huge fabre-toothed feline animal as large 

 as a tiger, and, to judge from its teeth, more 



1 St. John Mivart's "The Cat" (Murray, 1881). 



