The Cat Family. 123 



THE CAT FAMILY. 



' ' Of all the Carnivora, the Cats are the most completely 

 and powerfully armed. Their short and round muzzles, 

 short jaws, and particularly their retractile nails, whi'»h 

 raised perpendicularly and hidden between the toes by 

 the action of an elastic ligament when at rest lose neither 

 point nor edge, render them formidable animals. 



' ' They have two false molars above, and two below. Their 

 superior carnivorous tooth has three lobes and a blunted 

 heel on the inside, the inferior has two pointed and trench- 

 ant lobes without any heel. They have a very small canine 

 tooth above, without anything below to correspond." 



The species are all similar in form, but vary greatly in 

 size, length of hair and color. 



All the Felidae have five digits on the fore feet, and 

 four on the hind ones; when ready to strike they crouch 

 and spring upon their victim which they fasten "by 

 the deadly grip of the well armed jaw, and the united 

 action of eighteen fully extended piercing claws. The 

 fore-limbs are endowed with a freedom almost equal 

 to that of the Primates, and can be bent, extended and 

 turned with the utmost ease and swiftness, and deal a 

 blow as readily as the fists of a man." Although cats 

 possess only thirty teeth — twelve less than the dog — 

 they have every variety of tooth needed by a carnivorous 

 mammal. Their eyes are large, but the pupil possesses a 

 power of contraction under the influence of sunlight, 

 that enables some species to reduce it to a vertical slit 

 and others to a small round aperture. 



The European Wild Cat (Pelis-catus) is now extinct 

 in England where it was very common at one time, but 

 it is still found in Scotland, Southern Russia, Turkey, 

 Greece, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Dalmatia, Switzer- 

 land and in some parts of Asia. During the middle 

 ages its fur was commonly used for trimmings, and a 

 canon of the year 1227 forbade any abbess or nun to 

 wear more costly fur than that of lambs or eats. W. A. 

 Lockington says: "This cat is larger and more 

 strongly built than any domestic cat, and has a stouter 



