FELIS CATUS. 173 



the lower jaw, almost identical in size and shape, but re- 

 taining the three molar teeth, from the cave of Kent's 

 Hole, Torquay. 



The Essex jaw of the Wild Cat, which was found in the 

 same deposit that has yielded so many remains of the 

 Mammoth, was in the usual condition of the bones of that 

 period. And the specimen from Kent's Hole, now in the 

 British Museum, precisely accords, in colour and chemical 

 composition, with the fossils of the extinct quadrupeds from 

 the same cave. The outlines of the premolar teeth pre- 

 served in this jaw are added above the corresponding empty 

 sockets of the jaw figured, with which they quite agree in 

 size ; and both are undistinguishable from the analogous 

 parts of the still existing species of Wild Cat. We seem, 

 therefore, here to have another instance of the survival, by 

 a smaller and weaker species, of those geological changes 

 which have been accompanied by the extirpation of the 

 larger and more formidable animals of the same genus. 



Our household Cat is probably a domesticated variety of 

 the same species which was contemporary with the spe- 

 Itean Bear, Hysena, and Tiger. It appears, at least from 

 an observation recorded by M. de Blainville, that grimal- 

 kin cannot be the descendant of the Egyptian Cat, as M. 

 Temminck supposed. The first deciduous inferior molar 

 tooth of the Felis maniculata has a relatively thicker crown, 

 and is supported by three roots ; whilst the corresponding 

 tooth in both the domestic and wild Cats of Europe has a 

 thinner crown and two roots. The tail of the domestic Cat 

 is more tapering, and a little longer than in the wild Cat, 

 but the extent to which this part is shewn, by a curious 

 propagated variety of tail-less Cat, to be susceptible of 

 modification, ought to warn us against inferring specific 

 distinction from slight differences in the proportions of the 

 tail. 



