THE ORIGIN OF THE DOMESTIC CAT 



To speculate upon the origin of our domestic animals 

 is to enter upon a very wide field of research. Such 

 an inquiry takes us to so many distant countries, and 

 introduces us to so many different nations, that it at 

 once inaugurates a study of geography, history, 

 ethnology, languages, and literature sufficient to 

 occupy the leisure hours of a lifetime. And after all 

 this research, perhaps, we are unable to arrive at any 

 satisfactory or certain conclusion. The fact is, that 

 the reclamation of domestic animals from some 

 original wild stock, whatever and wheresoever it 

 may have been, dates so far back in the history of 

 mankind that no written record of its origin can now 

 be found. We can only surmise and argue from a 

 few isolated facts collected from different nations at 

 various periods of the earth's history. 



The domestic cat, which we now know in such 

 a great variety of forms, has doubtless not always 

 been domesticated, but, like the dog, horse, and some 

 other animals, has at some remote period been 

 reclaimed by man's agency from a feral state. 



But whence have arisen the numerous and 



remarkably different breeds which are now scattered 



all over the world ? Have they originated from one 



wild prototype, whose descendants, by transportation 



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