THE CAT. 237 



uniform grey colour. For the sake of clearness 

 I shall speak of this type as "grey" and not 

 "tabby." When we consider how little control 

 man exercises over the domestic cat, and how 

 freely these animals intermix, one would expect 

 that in the course of many generations they 

 would have become fairly uniform in appearance. 

 That they have not done so is due to the mys- 

 terious law as to the preservation of type which 

 so often aids us in detecting ancestral traits 

 amongr mixed - bred nations and animals. In 

 spite of a very free mingling of all the aboriginal 

 strains, one finds that certain distinct types 

 remain fairly constant, and I think that within 

 certain limits we may presume that these truly 

 represent different wild ancestors. I cannot help 

 thinking that the original progenitor of the 

 domestic tabby (which, as we have seen, is the 

 most common and representative type ruDW exist- 

 ing in captivity) was a distinct natural variety 

 which no longer exists as a wild animal. Not 

 only are the markings of the true tabby very 

 different from those of the Caffre cat {Fclis 

 caffea), which some naturalists confidently assert 

 to be the chief ancestor of our familiar tame 

 species, but it also differs essentially both in 



