SMOKE PERSIANS. 



179 



the light ear tufts and ruff, and therefore 

 cannot be regarded as correct smokes. Then, 

 again, there are light smokes which might 

 almost be called silver smokes very beautiful 

 cats to look at, but far removed from the 

 ideal smoke. 



Perhaps at some future time there may be 

 a special classification for these cats, which 

 are now without an abiding place at our 

 shows. It is most important that the coat 

 of a smoke should be long and of the true 

 Persian flakiness, otherwise the chief beauty 

 of the contrast between the light under-coat 

 and dark outer-coat is not seen to full advan- 

 tage. 



I think I may say without fear of con- 

 tradiction that, of all long-haired breeds, 

 smokes present the most altered and abso- 

 lutely dishevelled appearance when out of 

 coat. The glory of the light frill disappears, 

 and multitudes of lines and streaks can be 

 plainly discerned. Then a very rusty brown 

 tinge appears on the back, and the rich, 

 glossy black surface coat vanishes. I owned 

 a lovely smoke cat once that at certain times 

 of the year and, I may say, for most part 

 of the year was nothing better than a bad 

 black, his only claim to the title of smoke 

 being the general appearance of a dark cat 

 that had spent his life in an ashpit. But 

 when " Pepper " was in full feather, he was 

 a joy to behold. 



It is curious that when the kittens are 

 first born they appear almost a dead black, 

 with no trace of a white under-coat. This 

 appears gradually as the kittens grow, and 

 at three weeks old the lighter coat becomes 

 visible. Their faces and paws should be 

 intensely black when born, as the tendency 

 in smokes is to get lighter and not darker. 

 If a kitten is born with the appearance of 

 a smoke it will generally turn into what 

 I have termed a silver smoke later on. 

 As with black kittens, so with smokes : they 

 are often very rusty in appearance, but this 

 will disappear with their kitten coat. This 

 also applies to tabby markings, though, of 

 course., if there is any tabby blood in the 



strain the markings may be retained. For this 

 reason it is most undesirable to mate smokes 

 with tabbies ; neither is it advisable to select 

 a blue as a cross. The blue tinge destroys the 

 purity of the white under-coat, which is one 

 of the glories of a perfect smoke. It is a 

 case of " like to like " in breeding smokes, and, 

 failing this, choose a good black sire for your 

 queen with amber eyes. This is especially 

 advantageous if your queen should be light 

 in colour and throw light kittens ; but if she 

 is already too dark, mate with a chinchilla, 

 avoiding, if possible, a green-eyed one. 



Above all things shun, as you would Sin, 

 tabbies of any colour, and let your choice 

 fall on a heavily coated sire. I have been 

 told by smoke fanciers that it is much more 

 difficult to breed a good smoke female than 

 a male, and that the latter sex predominates 

 in litters. 



I will here give the officially approved table 

 showing the proportion of marks which should 

 be awarded for points 

 of smokes. This is as 

 drawn up by the Silver 

 and Smoke Persian Cat, 

 Society, which has Mrs. 

 H. V. James, 

 our principal 

 breeder of 

 smokes, as 

 Honorary 

 Secretary : 



MISS BARTLETT'S TWO SMOKE KITTENS. 



(Photo-. E. Landor, Baling.) 



