THE PEDIGREE OF THE CAT 193 
identified, the first introduction of the animal must have 
been at a much earlier date, the Roman evacuation 
having taken place about the middle of the fifth century 
of our era. 
Although cats of all colours are now met with, and some 
of them at least have been long known there, the preva- 
lence of “tabby” is, as already said, very characteristic of 
the old domesticated breed in Europe. In Eastern Asia, 
on the other hand, as was long since pointed out by that 
very observant naturalist the late Edward Blyth, “ tabbies ” 
are unknown, and either spotted or uniformly coloured cats 
are prevalent. In India, for instance, where they have not 
been crossed with a European stock, the ordinary cats are 
either spotted or fulvous, with barred limbs. In Siam we 
have the peculiar and valuable Siamese cat, characterised 
by the uniformly tawny fur of the body, the dark muzzle, 
under-parts, and limbs, the short legs, and blue eyes. 
Again, the long-haired Persian or Angora breed is also 
uniformly coloured, the prevalent tints being white, yel- 
lowish, or greyish. 
Among the smaller wild species of the genus indigenous 
to India is the desert-cat (feks ornata), of which the 
general colour is pale sandy, with small roundish black 
spots on the body and elongated spots or streaks on the 
neck and face, two dark bars being present on the inner 
side of the fore-limb. From this species have probably 
originated the spotted domesticated cats of India, in which 
the spots tend to aggregate into streaks on the fore-part 
of the body, while the slender tail is ringed. Probably, 
however, considerable crossing has taken place with two 
other wild Indian species—namely, the leopard-cat (F. den- 
galensis) and the tiny rusty-spotted cat (F. rudiginosa). 
Many of these spotted Indian domesticated cats have run 
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