6i 



WAKING BKACTIKS. 

 (Pholo: Mrs. S. F. Clarke.-; 



CHAPTER V. 



EXHIBITING. 



MONGST cat fanciers there is a laudable 

 ambition not only to breed good stock 

 but to exhibit it. Certainly there is 

 vastly more gratification and satisfaction in 

 obtaining high honours for cats and kittens 

 that we have bred ourselves, rather than for 

 those specimens which money has purchased. 

 If we consider that our cats have sufficiently 

 good points to merit their being entered for 

 a show, we must bear in mind that all the 

 beauty and form and feature will be thrown 

 away unless our pussies are in good show 

 condition. For exhibition purposes condition 

 means everything, and this is more especially 

 the case with the long-haired breeds. A 

 first-class specimen whose coat is ragged and 

 matted cannot fail to suffer in the judges' 

 estimation when compared with another 

 cat, of inferior quality perhaps as regards 

 points, but yet in the pink of condition, with 

 its coat well groomed, its eye bright, its fur 

 soft and silky. In the present day many of the 

 sp imens penned are so close together in point 

 of breed merit that a very little turns the scale 

 one way or the other. I have often said to 

 myself, when judging a class of cats, "This 



exhibit would be a winner but for its condi- 

 tion," and I have had to put it down in the 

 list. There is no doubt that with long-haired 

 cats a fine full coat will cover a multitude of 

 sins, but it cannot alter a long nose or pool- 

 shape and bad-coloured eye ; and in urging 

 the importance of condition, I at the same time 

 deprecate the awarding of prizes to cats that 

 have nothing to recommend them but their 

 pelage. Seeing, therefore, that a handsome 

 specimen may go to the wall for the lack of 

 attention on the part of the owner, it behoves 

 all cat 1 fanciers and would-be exhibitors to do 

 everything in their power to make their cats 

 look their very best, so that their pets may be 

 things of beauty in the show pen. In the dog, 

 rabbit, and pigeon fancy a great deal more 

 attention is given to condition than amongst 

 cat fanciers, who need waking up to the fact 

 that nothing goes so far to propitiate a judge 

 as superb show form and general good appear- 

 ance. There may be standards of points for 

 the guidance of the awards, but assuredly a 

 common-sense judge will look with disfavour 

 on a specimen with excellence of breed and 

 correct colour of eye if his coat is draggled and 



