XXIX. 

 ON THE CAT OF THE ANCIENT GEEEKS. 



In a book, with the existence of which I became acquainted a 

 few days ago, by a reference in Aubert and Wimmer's new edition 

 of Aristotle's ' Historia Animalium^' and which, through the kindness 

 of Mr. Sclater, I have had put into my hands this day, I have come 

 upon certain statements which confirm not only certain of the 

 conclusions, but certain also of the conjectures put forward by me 

 in the ' Journ. of Anat. and Phys.,' Nov. 1867 (Article XXVIII). 

 This book is Dr. Erhard's 'Fauna der Cycladen,' Leipzig, 1858. 

 From it I learn that the Mustela foina, the white-breasted marten^ 

 the animal which in my paper I strove to show was the domestic 

 mouse-killer of the ancient Greeks, is common now in all the 

 Cyclades, and in some of them actually has the old Greek name 

 Xktl^ at the present day. The polecat, Mustela puforius, and the 

 ferret are not members of this fauna ; neither could Dr. Erhard 

 find the genet there. I need not point out the bearing of 

 these statements upon those advanced by me in that article. But 

 I will take this opportunity of saying that Dr. Erhard's little 

 volume deserves to be better known than it is at present in England. 

 Besides giving us an excellent example and a ' simple case ' for the 

 study of the rationale of the Distribution of Species, it teaches us the 

 very important, and not a little needed lesson of caution, in receiving 

 catalogues of indigenous animals of any area^ however small and 

 accessible, as being necessarily exhaustive. Though the vegetation 

 of the Cyclades is (p. 7) of such a character that a hare can hardly 

 hide itself from the eye of the eagle, and though at first Dr. 

 Erhard was (p. 8) inclined to think their mammalian fauna was 

 as exclusively Adullamite as that of a coral island, he has, after an 



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