DOMESTIC CATS. 427 



cat. The late Professor Rolleston, of Oxford, brought forward, however, a con- 

 siderable amount of evidence to show that the ailuros of the Greeks was really a 

 marten, ami this view receives some support from the fact that no remains of cats 

 have been discovered among the ashes of Pompeii and Herculaneum. That cats 

 continued to be comparatively scarce and valuable animals during the middle ages, 

 is proved by the laws made in several countries for their special protection, and the 

 fines imposed on those who injured or killed them. 



Comino- now to the consideration of the various kinds of domestic cats, it may 

 be observed, in the tii-st place, that the difierent breeds of these animals are dis- 

 tinguished from one another mainly or entirely by such characters as colour, length 

 of hair, or, more rarely, length of tail : and that they do not present the marked 

 sti-uctural differences distinguishing the various breeds of dogs. This general 

 similarity may be partly accounted for b\- the circumstance that all cats are 

 required for nmch the same purpose, so that there has been no special inducement 

 for breedei-s to modify the structure of the creature. A more important factor in 

 the case is, however, in our opinion, the greater specialisation of a cat as compared 

 with a dog, as is particularly shown in the shortness of the face, the diminution in 

 the nundx'r of the teeth, and the peculiar structure of the cheek-teeth, it being 

 sufficiently obvious that a short-faced and few-toothed animal is not capable of 

 those nioditications in the length and proi)ortions of the skull, which can be so 

 readily induced in creatures with longer muzzles and a greater number of teeth. 

 That cats are, however, capable of perpetuating for a longer or shorter period 

 stiTictural modifications, is proved by a race of these animals with six toes on each 

 foot, in which the peculiarity was inhei-ited to the tenth generation. 



As regards coloration, European cats are commonly either "tabby," black, 

 white, sandy, tortoiseshell, dun, grey, or the so-called " blue " ; the two latter colours 

 being more rare than the others. All these different varieties will generally breed 

 more or less nearly true if prevented from crossing, but it frequently happens that 

 litters will contain difierent- coloured kitten.s. Formerly the ordinary European 

 cats were short and smooth-haired animals, but of late yeai-s there has been a large 

 amount of crossing -with the Persian breed, which has resulted in the production of 

 a number of long-haired cat.s. The true-bred " tabby " cat was, perhaps, the most 

 common English variety, its well-marked vertical stripes being not improbably due 

 to an original crossing with the wild cat. Its proper gi-ound-colour is grey, marked 

 with a black stripe down the back, and having subconcentric bands of the same colour 

 on the sides and limbs. The rare grey cats may be regarded as tabbies which have 

 lost all their stripes, with the exception of two transverse bare on the fore-legs. 

 Black cats may probaljly be considered analogous to black leopards, since, even 

 when purely bred, young kittens of this colour almost iuvariablj- show the stripes 

 of the " tabbj^" Usually black cats have some white hairs, more especially on the 

 throat, and, it is almost needless to remark, by an ever-increasing mixture of white, 

 a perfect transition may exist from black to white cats, the same holding good with 

 regard to the other breeds. In pure-bred black cats the eyes are of a clear yellow. 

 In white cats, on the other hand, the eyes may be either of the ordinary greenish- 

 yellow tinge, or of a pure blue, while in some cases one ej-e may be blue and the 

 other yellow, this feature being especially admired in white Persian cats. As is 



