The Cat Tribe 



71 



Photo by £, Laiufoy] 



{Eaiiiig. 



SHORT-HAIRED TABBY. 

 This is perhaps the most famous cat now living. It has won no less than iOO prizes. 



Decies is its owner. 



Lady 



deaf, or lack acute quality of 

 senses ; but this failing rather 

 softens the feline nature than 

 becomes dominant as a weak- 

 ness. 



The nearest to perfection 

 perha}is, and j-et at the same 

 time extremely soft and finely 

 made, is the Blue Cat, rare 

 in England as an English cat, 

 but common in most other 

 countries, and called in 

 America the Maltese Cat — for 

 fashion's sake probably, since 

 it is too widely distributed 

 there to be localised as of 

 foreign origin. It is out 

 in the mining districts and 

 agricultural quarters, right 

 away from the beaten tracks of humanity, where the most wonderful breeds of cats develop 

 in America ; and caravan showmen have told me that at one time it was quite a business for 

 them to carry cats into these wildernesses, and sell them to rougli, hardy miners, who dealt 

 out death to each other without hesitation in a quarrel, but who softened to the appeal of an 

 animal which reminded them of homelier times. 



One man told me that upon one occasion he sold eight cats at an isolated mining township 

 in Colorado, and some six days' journey farther on he was caught up by a man on horseback 

 from the township, who had ridden hard to overtake the menagerie caravan, with the news 

 that one of the cats had clind)ed a monster pine-tree, and that all the other cats had followed 

 in his wake ; food and drink had been placed in plenty at the foot of the tree, but that the 

 cats had been starving, frightened out of. their senses, for three days, and despite all attempts 

 to reach them they had only climbed higher and higher out of reach into the uppermost 



™__ and most dangerous branches of the pine. The showman 

 <^^bS hastened with his guide across country to the town- 

 ship, only to find that in the interval one bright 

 S2)ecimen of a man belonging to the village had sug- 

 gested felling the tree, and so rescuing the cats from 

 the pangs of absolute starvation, should they survive 

 the ordeal. A dynamite cartridge had been used to 

 blast the roots of the pine, and a rope attached to 

 its trunk had done the rest and brought the monstei' 

 tree to earth, only, however, at the expense of all the 

 cats, for not one sur\ived the tremendous fiill and 

 shaking. A sad and tearful procession followed the 

 remains of the cats to their hastily dug grave, and 

 thereafter a bull mastiff took the place of the cats in 

 the township, an animal more in character with the 

 lives of its inhabitants. 



Analogous to this case of the travelling menageries, 

 we have the great variety of blues, silvers, and whites 

 which are characteristic of Kussia. There is a vast 

 tableland of many thousands of miles in extent, 

 intersected by caravan routes to all the old countries 



I'koto bil E. Laiidor] [Ealing. 



LOSG-HAIKED ORAKGE. 



A good specimen of this variety is alwa3-s large and 

 finely furred. 



