48 



DOMESTIC CATS. 



Chap. I. 



and values most a good breed of mouse or rat-catchers. Those 

 cats which have a strong tendency to prowl after game, gene- 

 rally get destroyed by traps. As cats are so much petted, a 

 breed bearing the same relation to other cats, that lapdo^s 

 bear to larger dogs, would have been much valued ; and if 

 selection could have been applied, we should certainly have had 

 many breeds in each long-civilized country, for there is plenty 

 of variability to work upon. 



We see in this country considerable diversity in size, some in 

 the proportions of the body, and extreme variability in colouring-. 

 I have only lately attended to this subject, but have already 

 heard of some singular cases of variation ; one of a cat born 

 in the West Indies toothless, and remaining so all its life. 

 Mr. Tegetmeier has shown me the skull of a female cat with its 

 canines so much developed that they protruded uncovered 

 beyond the lips ; the tooth with the fang being -95, and the 

 part projecting from the gum "6 of an inch in length. I have 

 heard of a, family of six-toed cats. The tail varies greatly in 

 length ; I have seen a cat which always carried its tail flat on 

 its back when pleased. The ears vary in shape, and certain 

 strains, in England, inherit a pencil-like tuft of hairs, above a 

 quarter of an inch in length, on the tips of their ears ; and this 

 same peculiarity, according to Mr. Blyth, characterises some 

 cats in India. The great variability in the length of the tail 

 and the lynx-like tufts of hairs on the ears are apparently 

 analogous to differences in certain wild species of the genus. A 

 much more important difference, according to Daubenton, 95 is 

 that the intestines of domestic cats are wider, and a third longer, 

 than in wild cats of the same size ; and this apparently has been 

 caused by their less strictly carnivorous diet. 



95 Quoted by Isid. Geoffroy, 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' torn. iii. p. 427. 



