1907.] ENGLISH DOMESTIC CATS. 163 



In the second place, it increases in quantity as age advances, and 

 gradually encroaches upon the whiter areas, converting the hair 

 of the body fi-om whitish or pale fawn into pale or dark brown. 

 Sometimes there are indistinct traces of spots on the hind-qviarters 

 and legs. 



Judging from their size, form, and general aspect, I should say 

 these Cats are nothing but a domestic variety of F. ocreata. The 

 only skull of this breed that I j^ossess * is that of a female with its 

 contours and ridges indicating considerable muscular development. 

 It is a short, broad skull, with expanded zygomata, and beyond all 

 possibility of doubt falls into the group typified by F. ocreata and 

 F. sylvestris. In profile it is noticeable that the highest point of 

 the cranium lies well behind the fronto-parietal suture, and that 

 the area in front of that j)oint, almost as far as the nasals, is nearly 

 flat and slightly inclined. This is not a common feature in the 

 skulls of Domestic Cats ; but it is almost exactly paralleled in the 

 skull of an old male specimen of F. ocreata from Suakin, and does 

 not occur in the skull of a Siamese Cat in the British Museum, 

 in which the highest point of the skull is on the fi-ontal bones, 

 which are evidently swollen just behind the ^Dostorbital processes. 

 Another peculiarity in my sj)ecimen is the division of the infra- 

 orbital foramen by a bridge of bone. I find this feature repeated, 

 however, in the skull of a London Cat not referable to the Siamese 

 breed ; and it does not occur in the Siamese skull in the British 

 Museum. 



Nevertheless, these two Siamese skulls agree in the possession 

 of two small characters, one of which I can only match in one of 

 the English Cats' skulls I possess, while the other cannot be quite 

 matched in any of them. The first character is the height of the 

 interparietal crest, which is better developed than is usually the 

 case in English Domestic Cats, though it is equalled in the skull 

 of one London Cat that I have seen, and of one feral example of 

 the torquata-type of F. ocreata, from Celebes, in the British 

 Museum. The second character is the greater narrowness of the 

 posterior portion of the nasal bones and the more marked abrupt- 

 ness of the constriction between this portion and the expanded 

 anterior portion. But since the two Siamese skulls differ in 

 degree with respect to this character, and since the nasal bones 

 vary greatly in length and width in English Domestic Cats, no great 

 importance can, I think, be attached to the feature in question. 

 Moreover, as already stated (p. 152), the Celebes example of 

 torquata in the British Museum also has the nasals compressed. 



Since, therefore, the colour of the Siamese Cat affords no 

 evidence of its descent, and the skull is decidedly of the ocreata + 

 sylvestris type, there seems to me to be no reason to look beyond 

 those species or indeed beyond ocreata for its origin. Those who 

 claim that it has had an origin independent of our own Domestic 



* I am indebted to Mr. F. W. Couseiis, F.Z.S., for the skin and skull of one of 

 the two specimens of this breed I have been able to examine. Mr. Cousens also 

 kindly save me the skins and skulls of two Persian Cats. 



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