1907.] ENGLISH DOMESTIC CATS. 147 



breeds. Nevertheless the patterns appear to be fundamentally 

 distinct from each other in the sense that the differences between 

 them are not differences of degree, but of kind. Without 

 assuming the existence in the past of a number of intermediate 

 stages which do not appear to exist in the present, it is impossible 

 to reduce them to a common plan and it is difficult to see how 

 one can have arisen f i-om the other unless per saltuvii * . 



One or the other of these patterns, when the pattern is traceable 

 at all, may be seen in Cats of the short-haired, long-haired, or 

 Manx breeds, whether the ground-colour be grey or red, or black 

 or white, or any other tint. Neither at Oats' Homes nor at Oat 

 Shows nor in the streets have I seen one cat out of the hundreds 

 observed in which the pattern could not be assigned at once to 

 one or the other of these types. Here, then, is evidence for the 

 existence, side by side, of two fundamentally distinct kinds of 

 " Domestic Oats." These I propose to regard as species, trusting 

 to the analogy supplied by wild forms of the genvis Fells and 

 knowing no reason for thinking, much less proof of the fact, that 

 one has been derived from the other, either as a sudden sport or 

 by gradual modifications under the influence of selective breeding 

 or by inter-breeding with any wild species of the genus. 



The two types are described in some detail below (see pp. 151- 

 153). They may be very briefly diagnosed as follows : — 



a. Sides of the body, from the shoulder to the root of the tail, 

 marked with narrow wavy vertical stripes which show 

 a tendency, especially on the thighs, to break up into 

 spots ; no broad latero-dorsal stripe Striped " Tabby J' 



h. Sides of the body marked with three usually obliquely 

 longitudinal stripes forming the so-called " spiral," 

 " horseshoe," or " circular " pattern of fanciers ; a 

 broad latero-dorsal stripe on each side of the narrow 

 median spinal stripe Blotched " Tabby ^ 



It is difficult to ascei'tain from the writings of earlier natura- 

 lists whether they were familiar with these two types of Oats or 

 not. There is certain evidence that the blotched or true " Tabby "^ 

 Oat was domesticated in Sweden and known to Linnajus as early 

 as 1746. And that the Striped Oat was also domesticated in 

 Europe at a still earlier date is proved, I think, beyond doubt by 

 the figures published in Gesner's Hist. Anim. p. 345 (1551), and in 

 Johnston's ' Quadrupeds,' pi. Ixxii. p. 126 (1657). If these and 

 later post-Linna?an authors distinguished the two Oats, it must be 

 inferred that they attached no significance to the difference of 

 pattern, but regarded it as of the same value as the difference of 

 colour and as the asymmetrical blotching of piebald specimens. 

 Pennant, for example, speaking of the Tame Oat, says that it 



* The differences between these two types are described and figured by Mr. T. 

 S. Rope (' Zoologist,' 1881, pp. 353-337). Perhaps the omission of this paper from 

 the ' Zoological Record ' maj^ explain in part the want of consideration the facta 

 have received from most recent zoological writers on this subject. 



10* 



