94 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE. 



ever may have been the colour of the parents, those 

 bred out of them are almost invariably of the beautiful 

 brindled grey colour of the Wild Cat. 



In many of the skins of the Wild Cats from dif- 

 ferent parts of Europe of the present day, as well as 

 in those of the offspring of Domestic Cats run wild, 

 the fur, particularly about the muzzle, underpart of 

 the throat, chest, and abdomen, is much mixed with 

 white hairs ; in some, these parts are almost white. 

 This is probably the result of the interbreeding of the 

 two races, as in the fur of both African Wild Cats 

 [F. chaus and F. maniculata), the original ancestors 

 of our Domestic variety, the muzzle, underparts of 

 the throat and chest have many white hairs, and the 

 fur of the abdomen is almost, if not quite, white. 



Gesxer (' Hist. Animal.'), describing the Wild Cat 

 of Switzerland, states that between the breast and the 

 neck there is a broad patch of very white hairs ; but 

 was he describing an example of the true Felis syl- 

 vestris \ The following sentence appears to show 

 that even in his time the original race had been 

 modified by the imported Domestic variety: — "Sed 

 forte, ut domestic!, coloribus variant, ita etiam feri 

 non uno colore reperiuntur, in diversis regionibus 

 prsesertim. Quem ego circa finem Septembris apud 

 nos captum consideravi hujusmodi fuit " *. 



* In the first edition of the ' Historise Animalium,' 1551 , the words 

 from Sed to prcesertim are omitted, but appear in the second edition 

 published at Erankfort in 1620, some years after Gesner's death ; 

 it was evidently a printer's error, as the latter part of the sentence, 

 ■which is given in the edition of 1551, could have no meaning 

 without the previous words. 



