78' THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE. 



CuviER (' Le Eegne Animal,' vol. i. p. 165, 1829) 

 writes : — " Le Chat ordinaire est originaire de nos 

 forets d'Europe. En domesticite, il varie, comme 

 chacun sait, en couleur, en longueur at en finesse 

 de poil, mais infiniment moins que le chien." 



Sir Richard Owen (' British Fossil Mammals ') 

 founded his opinion that our household Cat was 

 probably a domesticated variety of the same species 

 which was contemporary with the Spelaean Bear, 

 Hyfena, and Tiger on De Blainville's statement that 

 the first inferior milk-molar tooth of the F. manicu- 

 lata (Riippell's Cat) has a thick crown and three 

 roots, while the corresponding tooth in our Domestic 

 Cat and the Wild Cat of Europe has a thinner crown 

 and only two roots. 



The following is the original text from M. de 

 Blainville's ' Osteographie des Mammiferes,' vol. ii. 

 p. 65, Felis, c. 1848-50: — "Je dois toutefois faire 

 observer que dans le F. maniculata, la premiere 

 molaire inferieure de lait est pourvue, sans doute a 

 cause de son epaisseur, d'une troisifeme racine interne 

 mediane qui n'existe pas dans la dent correspondante 

 du Chat d'Europe, sauvage et domestique, ce qui 

 confirme la distinction de ces deux especes, et par 

 consequent d^montre que notre Chat domestique n'a 

 pas pour souche sauvage le Chat d'Egypte, comme 

 I'a pense M. Temminck" *. 



* Professor Mivart writes : — " I found, ■when working at my 

 monograph on the CanidsB, so many individual differences in molar 

 teeth that I came to the conclusion that small dental differences 

 formed a very unsatisfactory support for specific distinction. I have 

 had several skulls of Monkeys in my collection with singular though 

 slight differences of dentition." 



