80 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE. 



one from the south-east of Asia and the other from 

 the north-east of Africa — viz., the Chinese Cat * and 

 the African Cat — and that the present Domestic 

 Cat of Europe derives its origin principally from 

 Africa, and has been in several places, especially in 

 Germany, much crossed with the European Wild 

 Cat. He considers that the taming or domestication 

 of the smaller varieties of the Cat tribe took place 

 principally with those people who led stationary or 

 non-nomadic lives and who occupied themselves in 

 agriculture in its various branches, as it was of vital 

 necessity that their stores of grain &c. should be 

 protected from the attacks of the voracious rodents, 

 and experience taught them that for this the smaller 

 Cats were extremely suitable. 



The late Professor Rolleston, in a paper on 

 Domestic Cats, ancient and modern, in the ' Journal 

 of Anatomy and Physiology,' vol. ii. 1868, considered 

 that the Domestic Cat was not known to the Greeks 

 and Romans in classical times, and that the White- 

 breasted Marten [Maries foina), which is known 

 also as the Beech- or Stone-Marten, was functionally 

 the " Cat " of the ancients ; and further on in his 

 paper he states : " Though there is no reason for 

 supposing that the Felis domesticus was domesticated 

 in any other country than Egypt before the Christian 

 era, there are many reasons for demurring to the 



* Dr. NBHEiNa considers that it is probable the Domestic Chinese 

 Cat had its origin in the native Wild Cats ; probably, he sa5'S, in 

 relatively early times they succeeded in domesticating one of the 

 indigenous Wild Cats. " I certainly," he says, " cannot prove this 

 theory, but, looking at the state of civilization in which the Chinese 

 have lived for so many thousand years, I hold it as very probable that 

 they have possessed Domestic Cats for a very long series of years." 



