1907.] ENGLISH DOMESTIC CATS. 155 



The result is a mixture composed of red and black stripes on a 

 yellowish ground-colour. But in more complicated cases the red 

 and black also invade the ground-colour in patches, either the 

 red or the black, but more commonly the black, predominating. 

 On these skins the original pattern is almost entirely obscured. 

 It is a well-known but none the less singular fact that Tortoise- 

 shell Cats are generally females and " red " Cats generally males. 

 This circumstance is the foundation for the saying that the " red " 

 Cat is the male of the " Tortoise-shell " ; but since the Tortoise- 

 shell is as much melanistic as erythristic, male black cats have 

 equal claims to be so regai^ded. 



3. On the Characters of the Eurojnan and African Wild Cats 

 (F. sylvesti-is and F. ocreata) and the Origin of the Domestic 

 Types (torqviata and catus). 



Criticism of the opinions of authors on the subject of the origin 

 of " Domestic Cats" must be prefaced by the remai-k that, with 

 one or two exceptions, they failed to realise that an explanation 

 was I'eqviired of the origin of two distinct kinds of Cats differing 

 so much from each other that no one would hesitate to regard 

 them as representing widely divergent species if they occurred in 

 a state of nature. 



A great deal has been wiitten on this topic. Opinions at one 

 time were nearly equally divided on the point, some authors 

 regarding the European "Wild Cat {F. sylvestris), others the 

 Egyptian Cat [F. ocreata) as the ancestral stock. Of late years, 

 however, the latter species has grown greatly in favour for the 

 distinction, pai-tly on account of the unquestioned adoption and 

 reiterated publication on the part of recent writers of a statement 

 made many years ago, but none the less erroneous, that the 

 Domestic Cat has a longer and more tapering tail than the Wild 

 Cat of Europe*, and partly on account of ISTehring's assertion t that 

 the Domestic and Egyptian Cats resemble each other, and differ 



* Macgillivraj', in his excellent account of the British Wild Cat ('British 

 Quadrupeds,' Jardine's Naturalist's Library, pp. 188-195, 1854), long ago pointed 

 out that the tail of the Domestic Cat is thinner and more tapering than that of the 

 Wild Cat, because its fur is much shorter. Dr. Hamilton also exposes the fallacy of 

 the above-stated belief (' Wild Cat of Europe,' pp. 41-42, 1896). One modern writer 

 speaks of the tail of the Wild Cat as " clubbed." I have never seen a specimen with 

 a tail to which this epithet meaning broader at the tip than at the base could be 

 applied. 



t SB. Ges, nat. Freunde Berlin, 1887; pp. 26-27, & ' Humboldt,' 1888, pp. 139-141. 

 Nehring (Zeits. fiir Ethnologic, xxi. pp. 558-9, 1889) suggests that Domestic Cats 

 are descended from two main stocks — one from S.E. Asia, the other from N.E. 

 Africa. From the former arose the " Chinese " Domestic Cat ; from the latter the 

 Egyptian House-Cat. The Egyptian House-Cat was the forerunner of the European 

 Domestic Cat, with an infusion, especially in Germany, of the European Wild Cat. 

 But whether the stock of the Asiatic House-Cat was F. inconspicua Gray, or 

 F. manul, or some other smaller Asiatic species, the author leaves undecided. It does 

 not appear that Nehring realised the existence of the two types of European Domestic 

 Cats 1 have described. Also he can scarcely have been acquainted with the 

 peculiarities of F. manul or with the nature of the aifinity between F. incon- 

 £picua and F. ocreata. 



