184 



THE BOOK OF THE CAT. 



mated, may now be relied upon to produce 

 whole litters of smoke kittens. As a rule, the 

 kittens at birth are quite black, and remain 

 so for a week or so ; and my experience has been 

 that if a kitten shows any trace of grey at 

 birth, it will grow up too light. There are, 

 however, a few well-known queens who throw 

 almost silver kittens, which remain so for 

 weeks, and then shed this kitten coat for a 

 darker one ; so no hard-and-fast rule can be 

 laid down as to what a smoke kitten should 

 look like when born. Try in - breeding for 

 coat to avoid the sleek or woolly-coated 

 smoke, and aim at getting a cat with a coat of 

 the true Persian flakiness described by Mr. 

 Harrison Weir in his book on Persian cats, 

 otherwise the chief beauty -the light under- 

 and dark outer-coat is not seen to advantage 

 as the cat moves. One point to be remem- 

 bered in this breed is that the new coat grow- 

 ing is dark just at the roots. These marks, 

 when the smoke is changing coat, have often 

 been mistaken for tabby markings, so for 

 this reason it is most unwise ever to show a 

 smoke when out of coat. Wait until your 

 cat is in full coat before accusing it of having 

 tabby markings. 



" There is a fashion in smokes, as in every- 

 thing else ; and at present in England the 

 very dark smokes -are the rage, .but in America 

 the light ones are more sought after. That 

 grand cat ' Watership Caesar,' who was con- 

 sidered too light for English taste, was last 

 year bought by the late Mrs. Thurston and 

 taken to America, where he carried off all the 

 smoke honours, also taking the prize for the 

 best cat in the show. The same happened to 

 Lady Marcus Beresford's ' Cossey,' a lovely 

 cat of the lighter type. The tide may turn, 

 however, even in England, where the 

 slightly lighter smokes may share the honours 

 with their darker brothers. It is better, 

 however, to be on the safe side and breed for 

 the darker smoke, as the lighter are apt to 

 lose the smoke characteristics and overstep 

 the line which divides them from a shaded 

 silver." 



Mrs. Sinkins, to whom I have alluded as a 



smoke breeder, owns a splendid stud cat called 

 " Teufel " that has made a name for himself 

 as a first prize winner. This cat is as nearly 

 a perfect specimen as it is possible to find. 

 Mrs. Sinkins has written a few notes on 

 smokes. 



" I must consider myself honoured in being 

 asked to write about smoke Persians in 'The 

 Book of the Cat,' as I am, comparatively 

 speaking, a beginner in the cat fancy, only 

 having kept Persians for three years or so. 

 I began by buying a well-bred queen in kitten, 

 and she presented me with two chinchillas 

 and a perfect smoke female, which I named 

 ' Teufella,' and showed at Westminster in 

 1899. She carried all before her, winning 

 everything in her class, and was claimed at 

 once at catalogue price. From a silver half- 

 sister of hers I then bred ' Teufel,' whose 

 picture is in this issue, and who is a great 

 pet, being extremely sweet-tempered and 

 affectionate. His chief characteristics are his 

 absolutely unmarked black face and the lovely 

 white under-coat, so desirable in a perfect 

 smoke, and for which he received a special this 

 spring (1902) at Westminster. I hope some 

 of his descendants will take after him in 

 these respects and make smokes increasingly 

 popular. 



" In my opinion, it is a fatal mistake to 

 mate smokes with blues, as they then lose 

 this white under-coat. I think one obtains it 

 best by mating a smoke-bred smoke cat with 

 either a silver-bred smoke or else with a silver 

 cat, as unmarked as possible, who possesses a 

 smoke ancestor. Some day I should like to 

 try mating a black with a pale silver, just as 

 an experiment. 



" As to eye colour, there can be no two 

 opinions. The deeper the orange, the better. 



" I do not find smokes at all delicate, no 

 more so than the common or garden cat. All 

 my queens have entire freedom, one in par- 

 ticular being a first-rate ratter and mouser, 

 even catching moles sometimes. And they 

 live out of doors in unheated houses all the 

 year round, even in the most severe winter. 



" It seems hard that all Persians should have 



