1907.] ENGLISH DOMESTIC CATS. 161 



4. On Manx, Persian, Siamese, Tivlian, aiuZ Abyssinian Breeds. 



As ali'eady explained, •' ]\Ianx " Oats may be either of the catus 

 or torquata ty^^e. Apart from the abbreviated tail, which has 

 been discussed and dismissed as of no systematic significance from 

 the zoological standpoint, Manx Cats drffer or are alleged to differ 

 from ordinary short-haired Oats in standing relatively higher at 

 the hind-quarters. I have not seen any measurements sub- 

 stantiating this claim : and it is difiicult to decide to what extent 

 the greater apparent po.sterior statm'e is an optical illusion caused 

 by the absence of the tail. It is quite possible, however, that 

 suppression of the tail Ls correlated with greater height at the 

 sacrum, and that, to put it crudely, the caudal material is dis- 

 tributed to or absorbed by the hind-quaiters. Some Lynxes 

 certainly seem to stand higher on the hind legs than the majority 

 of species of Felis. Be this as it may, the cii'cumstance that height 

 at the posterior region is considered by fanciers " a point" in the 

 ]Manx breed throws the fact — if fact it be — under suspicion of 

 having been fostered by selective breeding and of being therefore 

 unworthy of consideration from tlie phylogenetic and systematic 

 point of view, zoologically speaking. In other words, as little 

 importance should be attached to the character as to the absence 

 or abbreviation of the tail. 



With regard to so-called " Persian " or " Angora" Oats*, there 

 seems to me to be no reason to sujjpose that any other species is 

 involved in their ancestry than in the ancestry of the short- 

 haired breeds most common in Eui-ope. Both the "'blotched" 

 and the " striped " styles of pattern occur ; and no other type of 

 pattern is known amongst them, so far as I am aware. The 

 skull, moreover, is not distinguishable from that of short-hau-ed 

 Domestic Oats. The small systematic value that should be 

 attached to the long coat has been already insisted upon. Xothing 

 seems more likely than that tame Oats were imported from 

 Egypt into Persia ; the European Wild Oat {F. sylvestris) occurs 

 both in Asia Minor and Persia, and F. ocreata has been recorded 

 from Syi'ia and Arabia. Hence it seems needless to look beyond 

 the two species just mentioned for the origin of "striped" 

 •'Persian" Cats, even on the supposition that they came ori- 

 ginally from Persia. That the " blotched " Pei-sians had the same 

 origin,whatevei- that ma}' have been, as the "blotched " short-haired 

 Oats is in the highest degree probable. For myself, I think 

 it qmte needless to consider that so trivial a character as long 

 hair is to be traced in all cases to Oats imported into Western 

 Europe from Asia Minor or Persia. The suggestion — first made, 

 I believe, by Pallas, but repeated even in modern literatui-e on 

 the subject — that the Central Asiatic species. Pallas's Oat {Felis 

 raanuT), conti'ibuted to the " Persian " breed, has nothing to be said 

 in its favour. Felis raanul is quite unlike all domestic breeds. 



* Desmarest (Nouv. Diet. vi. p. 122, 1816) gives Anatolia as the original country 

 of this breed. 



Peoc. Zool. >Soc.— 1907, Xo. XI. 11 



