154 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



aacestor of our domestic race, although no such 

 colouration is to be found in European cats, and so 

 far as external appearance goes, Felis caffra, 'the 

 CafFer cat, is more like our "tabby," though a 

 larger animal with longer legs. 



Strange to say, the remains of Felis\caffra 

 (according to Professor Boyd Dawkins) have 

 been found in a fossil state in deposits of the 

 Pleistocene age in this country, namely, in Bleadon 

 Cave, Somersetshire, and elsewhere. ATgreat 

 French naturalist, however, De Blainville, who 

 made a critical examination of the mummied 

 bodies of several cats brought from^ Egyptian 

 tombs, arrived at the conclusion that they repre- 

 sented three different species.^ Hence it cannot 

 be affirmed with certainty that any one of these 

 three has given rise to the domestic type of cat 

 with which we are now so familiar. 



These reflections lead to a general consideration 

 of the relationship which exists between the domestic 

 cat and the different wild species oi Felis which are 

 distributed over the earth's surface. 



The Arabic writer on hunting, already mentioned 

 (by name Sid Mahomed El Mangali), gives'us the 

 view which was prevalent among the Arabs eight 

 hundred years ago concerning the origin of the 

 cat. They said that as the buzzard was made out 

 of the clay which remained over after the falcon 

 had been created, so the cat was made out of the 

 clay which was left after the creation of the tiger — 

 a truly quaint theory of evolution, no doubt, but one 

 1 Osteographie des Mammiflres, " Felis," pp. 65, 85, 89, 90, 175. 



