ORIGIN OF THE DOMESTIC CAT i6i 



Amongst other notable cats of Asia, two especi- 

 ally deserve mention, on account of the curious 

 way in which they have been made useful to man ; 

 these are the Cheeta, or Hunting Leopard, and the 

 Caracal, or Desert Lynx. Both these animals are 

 trained in India, Persia, and Arabia to catch game 

 for their owners — the Cheeta taking deer and 

 antelopes, the Caracal taking partridges, francolin, 

 and other winged game. The practice of taming 

 and training these animals in the East is of very 

 ancient date. The Cheeta is figured on Assyrian 

 bas-reliefs in the act of seizing an antelope, and is 

 represented also on Egyptian monuments dating 

 about 1700 B.C., amongst the animals brought in by 

 way of tribute to the kings of Thebes by the black 

 tribes of the Upper Nile, led in a slip with a very 

 ornamental collar. The Arabian writer on hunting 

 of the tenth century, to whom I have already 

 referred, devotes several pages to the subject, point- 

 ing out the qualities and peculiarities of a good 

 leopard, and giving instructions for taming and 

 training him, deprivation of food and sleep being 

 the chief means employed. The Crusaders found 

 this kind of sport much in vogue with the Mussul- 

 man princes of Syria, and the Emperor Frederick 

 II., who made a journey to Jerusalem in 1228, 

 mentions, in his treatise De Arte Venandi, both 

 the Cheeta and the Lynx amongst the animals used 

 for hunting. In the fourteenth century the sport 

 was introduced into Europe, first in Italy, and 

 afterwards, in France, where it was patronised by 

 the French Court until the days of Henry IV. 



