PEDIGREE. 95 



I.v tracing the lineal descent of the Wild Cat of 

 Europe, it may be divided into five periods : — 



1. The Pleistocene Cats: Felis catus magna bmA. Felis catus 



minuta of Schmerling; the Cats of the Prehistoric 

 Period. 



2. The Wild Cat, Felis sylvestris, previous to the intro- 



duction into Europe of the Egyptian Domestic Cat, 

 c. 500 B.C. 



3. The Wild Cat, Felis sylvestris, after the introduction 



of the Egyptian Domestic Cat, with occasional inter- 

 breeding of the two races: from 500 b.c. to 1200 a.d. 



4. The Wild Cat, Felis catus (Linn.), when, from the 



more general distribution of the Domestic race, the 

 interbreeding had. become more general : from 13th 

 to 18th century. 



5. Felis catus ferus, the mixed breed, between the above 



and the Domestic Cat : the W^ild Cat of the present 

 time.* 



If the supposition be correct, that Felis catus magna 

 of Schmerling is identical with Felis caffra of 

 historic times, it is possible that the European Wild 

 Cat and the Egyptian Domestic Cat are derived from 

 one common ancestor. 



[As these sheets were passing through the press an in- 

 teresting article on the Wild Cat of Europe appeared, 

 illustrated with two plates, in the ' Atti della Societk Italiana 

 di Scienze Naturali,' vol. xxxv., by Professor Giancito 

 Martorelli, in which he describes two W^ild Cats, one from 

 Sardinia and one from the Tuscan Maremma, differing, he 

 states, so entirely from the Wild Cats of the Alps and the 

 rest of Western Europe that he regards them as a new race, 

 closely allied to the African Cat [Felis maniculata), to which 

 he gives the name of Felis medittrranea.] 



* There ia also a feral cat, the offspring of Domestic Cats run 

 wild, often described as Wild Cat. 



