1907.] ENGLISH DOMESTIC CATS. 165 



F. ocreata, which may be either self-coloured like the " chcms "- 

 like Cat or spotted and streaked like the spotted Indian Oat. The 

 facts adduced do not appear to me to supply any evidence that svich 

 indigenous Indian Oats as F. rubiginosa, F. chaus, ov F. henga- 

 lensis have contributed to the strains ; and I strongly suspect that 

 they have been derived from F. ocreata either by the importation 

 of tamed specimens or by the reclaiming from the wild state of 

 examples of this species which may have inhabited India in com- 

 paratively recent times. 



In the British Museum there are a few skins of Indian 

 Domestic or semi-domestic Oats belonging to the spotted or 

 striped and to the self-coloured types mentioned by Blyth. An 

 examination of them fully confirms the opinion I had formed 

 from reading Blyth's remarks. Those belonging to the striped or 

 spotted type are, as Mr. Sclater suggested, the same as the form 

 described by Ouvier as torquata. Those of the self-coloured type 

 do not differ from them more than some of the self-coloured Cats 

 differ fi-om the striped Oats to be seen in the London streets. 

 Some of them are more rufescent than others ; but I cannot find 

 in them a particle of evidence of partial descent from F. chaus 

 or from any other indigenous Indian species. 



Not uncommonly Indian Domestic Cats differ from typical 

 English examples of torquata in having the bands on the tail 

 narrower and the stripes, especially on the forehead and cheeks, 

 more rufous. The narrowness of the caudal stripes arises from 

 the splitting of the normal stripes ; but this character as well as 

 the rufescence may be seen in African examples of F. ocreata. 

 There is no reason, therefore, to doubt that the Indian Domestic 

 Cats are descended from that species. It must, of course, be con- 

 ceded that they may interbreed with indigenous Indian species, 

 and especially^ with the so-called Desert-Oat {F. ornata), which, 

 from the structure of the skull and teeth, as well as from other 

 characters, must be regarded, I think, as the Indian representa- 

 tive, as F. caudata is the Bokhara representative, of the group 

 typified by F. ocreata in Africa, and by F. sylvestris in Europe. 



Oats of the so-called "Abyssinian" breed maybe descended, for 

 anything I know to the contrary, from specimens of F. ocreata 

 directly exported from Abyssinia-. They ai-e certainly not unlike 

 some self-coloured examples of that species. On the other hand, 

 it would I imagine be difficult to separate them from fulvescent 

 '"Ticked" Oats, which appear to me to be nothing but examples 

 of the torqitata-tj-pe in which the pattern is broken up and 

 evanescent (see p. 152). 



5. On alleged Cases of loiterbreedmg betioeen Domestic Cats and 

 various 'wild Species of the Gemis Felis. 



It has been stated over and over again that Domestic Cats 

 interbreed freely with the native Cats of various species inhabiting 

 the countries to which they have been transported. One cannot 



