DOMESTIC CATS. 611 



Length of Body. Length of Tail. 



Common Qenei^Viverra genetta 20" 16" 



Pharaoh's Rat, Herpestes ichneumon 18" 18" 



Sp&nish Ichneumon, Ilerpestes widdringtoni 22" 20" 



White-breasted Marten, Mustela foina 16" 8" 



Yellow- breasted Marten, Mustela martes 18" 12" 



Polecat and Ferret, Mustelce putorius et furo 18" 6" 



Sardinian Weasel, Mustela hoccamela 8 j" 4" 



Stoat, Mustela erminea 10" 4" 



Com.mon Wesiael, Mustela vulgaris 7^" 2" 



The upshot of this paper then is to show that in classical times 

 the word ya\rj was used by the Greeks to denote the musteline 

 marten and ferret, but not the polecat probably, though probably 

 the genet, and that in later times, but not till later times, it was 

 used also for the Felis domesticus. The word mustela does not seem 

 to have been transferred together with the office when the latter 

 was handed over from the marten to the felis, in Italy. In the 

 East the felis took both the name and the work of the rival it 

 supplanted. It did succeed in supplanting the marten as the 

 domestic mouse-killer, probably partly by virtue of its greater 

 attachment to man and to place, partly by virtue of its less pro- 

 nounced tendency to burglary and petty larceny, partly by virtue 

 of its more even temper, and partly by its greater cleanliness and 

 less offensiveness. The very points also in which as a wild animal 

 it is inferior make it superior as a domestic one to a musteline. 

 Its constitution being less plastic it cannot fit itself as easily as 

 the latter to varying climates, in many of which, as Reugger has 

 shown of Paraguay, it cannot run wild. Its range of foods is more 

 limited, and its faculty for, and its courage in adopting new methods 

 of purveying for itself, less conspicuous than theirs. Hence 'the 

 poor cat of the adage' being more dependent on man, has been 

 obliged to render itself more useful to him than the marten, and it 

 has very successfully turned its inferiority to 'commodity.' 



The question as to how, in the trivial language of two different 

 nations, English and Greek, in modern as in ancient times, Viver- 

 rines^, Mustelines, and Felines have each had a representative 

 called by the same name as a couple of animals, one in each of the 

 two other families, is a little harder to understand for the ana- 

 tomist, or for the anatomical artist, than it is for anybody who, 

 being devoid of either of these accomplishments, will stand inside 



* We speak of a civet cat as well as of a marten cat and common cat. 



