ASTATIC WILDCATS 
So much for the tamed cats of Egypt; but what have they to 
do with our own Puss? Everything, for it now seems certain 
that she has come down to us from these same “little Egyptian 
cats,” and even owes to them her pet name. A century ago it 
was generally believed that all the house cats of the world were 
derived from Europe, and came from tamed wildcats — the 
common wildcat (felis catus), still numerous in the forested 
central parts of that continent, though nearly extinct in Great 
Britain. It is the only one of the smaller cats to have the 
honor of a descriptive book’ all to itself, while pastem 
its career in Great Britain, where it has been the Wildcats. 
subject of much curious hunting history, furnishes entertaining 
chapters to Bell, Harting,’® and other British writers, not to 
speak of continental authorities. So we know this animal 
better, perhaps, than almost any other of its kind. 
Eastward of the Caspian Sea its place is taken by Pallas’s 
cat, or the “manul,” which is rather smaller, “is pale whitish 
gray, with some narrow dark markings on the chest, loins, and 
limbs, the tail being short and ringed .. . and differs from 
all other Old World members of its genus by the great length 
and softness of its fur.” The Russian naturalist Pallas sug- 
gested that this cat was the original of the long-haired Persian 
or Angora breed, and this is probably so, since, “with the 
exception of the shortness of the tail and its dark rings, all the 
characters of this species are just those which might be expected 
in the ancestor of the Persian breed”’; and Lydekker thinks 
that the points mentioned may have been eliminated by careful 
selection or crossing. 
In the same wild, dry uplands of central Asia lives also the 
steppe cat, especially numerous in Bokhara, which is yellowish 
and thickly speckled with small, irregular brown spots that 
arrange themselves into lines or even streaks on the fore shoulders 
and the thighs. A near ally to it is the desert cat, smaller, 
more whitey brown, and prevalent on the arid plains of north- 
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