92 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE. 



PEOPEJSfSITY OF TEE DOMESTIC EACE TO ASSUME 

 THE COLOCTR OF TEE WILD RACE. 



It is a well-known fact that onr Domestic Cats will 

 often desert their homes and take to a feral life, and 

 that their progeny after one or two generations, what- 

 ever may have been the colour of the fur of their 

 parents, invariably put on the grey colour. 



A. E,. Wallace, in his work on Natural Selection, 

 p. 40, says : " Domestic varieties of animals when 

 turned wild must return to something like near the 

 type of the original wild stock, or become altogether 

 extinct." In a note on this sentence, he says : — 

 " That is, they will vary, and the variations which 

 tend to adapt them to the wild state, and therefore 

 approximate them to wild animals, will be preserved. 

 Those individuals which do not vary sufficiently will 

 perish." 



Daewin, I. c, considers that domesticated animals 

 which return to a wild state are always exposed to 

 new conditions of life, and agrees with Mr. Wallace, 

 that they have to seek their own food and enter into 

 competition with the native productions, and must 

 undergo some change and have a tendency to revert 

 to the primitive state. Feral Cats {i. e. Cats run 

 wild), he says, both in Europe and La Plata, are 

 regularly striped, and grow to an unusual size, but 

 do not differ from the Domestic Cat in any other 

 character. Breeds of Cats, he says, imported into 

 this country soon disappear, as, from their nocturnal 

 and rambling habits, free crossing cannot be pre- 

 vented. 



