THE CAT. 239 



appearance. Usually this difference indicates 

 some diversity of habit in the two sexes, and 

 is owing either to the special need of protection 

 of the weaker vessel — as in the case of sober- 

 coloured hen-birds which need to be concealed 

 when nesting — or to the profitableness of con- 

 spicuous colours to one sex only for advertising 

 and other purposes. Among the living wild 

 representatives of the cat tribe any marked 

 difference between the sexes is rare, but still, 

 as in the case of the lion and lioness, — and 

 possibly also in that of the male and female 

 jaguarondi, — it occasionally exists. Now it is a 

 well-known fact that a tortoise-shell cat is almost 

 invariably a female, and that if a tortoise-shell 

 be mated with a sandy -coloured " tom " all the 

 female kittens are tortoise-shell and all the male 

 sandy. Moreover, it is, I believe, rare to find 

 a true sandy cat which is not a male ; and some 

 writers have put forward the view that the tor- 

 toise-shell is the true mate of the sandy cat, and 

 vice versa. If this be so, it is strong evidence 

 that at one time there lived a breed of wild 

 cats which had these colours, and which, owing 

 to some peculiar circumstances of environment, 

 found it profitable to have the protective mark- 



