72 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
— ad Leads MR alo 
Photo by C. Reid] [Wishaw, N. B, Photo by BE. Landor] f 
[Ealing 
MANX SIAMESE 
These tailless cats are well known; they were formerly called These strikingly coloured cats are now fairly numerous, but com- 
© Cornwall cats.’” Note the length of the hind legs, which is one mand high prices. They have white kittens, which subsequently 
of the characteristics of this variety of the domestic cat become coloured 
to steal the wonderful cats of Persia, China, and Northern India, as well as those of the 
many dependent and independent tribes which bound the Russian kingdom. But it is a 
remarkable fact that none but the blues can live in the attenuated atmosphere of the higher 
mountainous districts through which they are taken before arriving in Russian territory. It is 
no uncommon thing to find a wonderful complexity of blue cats shading to silver and white in 
most Russian villages, or blue cats of remarkable beauty, but with a dash of tabkby-marking 
running through their coats. Their life, too, is lived at the two extremes. In the short Russian 
summer they roam the woodlands, pestered by a hundred poisonous insects; in the winter they 
are imprisoned within the four walls of a snow-covered cottage, and are bound down prisoners to 
domesticity till the thaw sets in again. Many of the beautiful furs which come to us from Russia 
are really the skins of these cats, the preparation of which for market has grown into a large 
and thriving industry. The country about Kronstadt, in the Southern Carpathian Mountains 
of Austria, is famous for its finely developed animals ; and here, too, has grown up a colony of 
sable-coloured cats, said to be of Turkish origin, where the pariahs take the place of cats. 
The Tassy is remarkable to us in that it is characteristic of our own country, and no other 
colour seems to have been popular until our own times. If you ask any one which breed of 
cat is the real domestic cat, you will be told the tabby, probably because it is so well known to 
all. The complexity of the tabby is really remarkable, and for shape and variety of colouring 
it has no equal in any other tribe of cat. It has comprised in its nature all the really great 
qualities of the feline, and all its worst attributes. You can truthfully say of one of its 
BLUE LONG-HAIRED, OR PERSIAN SILVER PERSIANS 
This cat belonged to Queen Victoria Three of Mrs. Champion's celebrated cats 
