Shaler.] 160 [April 17, 
in an effort to ascertain what tendency there might be to rever- 
sionary features in our domesticated cat to either of the two sources 
whence it could have been derived. I have failed so'far to find any 
very evident trace of a tendency to return to the type of the Felis ma- 
niculata, but have discovered a very interesting reversion toward the 
wild Felis catus, which I propose now to consider in some detail. 
Obviously the circumstances which most favor the reversion of any 
domestic breed to their original stock are those which restore it most 
nearly to the wild conditions. Under the conditions of domestication 
an animal may acquire features of color or of form which may obscure 
the derivation, yet these may be easily swept away when the creature 
returns to the needs and struggle of a feral state. Fortunately we have 
in Cambridge, Mass., a large number of cats; if my calculation does not 
deceive me the number is to be reckoned by thousands, which are es- 
sentially wild, having no owners, rarely entering a dwelling except by 
stealth and in the severest weather, and feeding in the winter by the 
chance pickings about the areas, adding in the summer the birds they 
may capture. <A large part of the people of Cambridge leave the 
city for the summer, and during this time the household cat often 
rears a litter and wanders away in search of food; this is constantly 
adding to the undesirable supply of these creatures. 
Here we have all the conditions favorable to reversion, and here 
we find a race developed, which, in nearly all important characters 
closely resembles the Felis catus; about one in four of the semi-fe- 
ral cats in the vicinity of Cambridge are colored precisely in the 
fashion of that species. The coloration of the Felis catus and of these 
reversionary forms is so peculiar that we cannot for an instant sup- 
pose that the correspondence is accidental. The pattern of coloration 
is probable the most peculiar of all the elaborate features which oc- | 
cur in the genus. The ground color of the body is a lightish gray | 
covered with a profusion of stripes and bars of a blackish tinge; on 
the head all these run longitudinally; from the angle of the mouth | 
a line extends downwards and backwards for an inch or more on to 
the throat; from the outer angle of the eye a’similar crescent-shaped 
line leads down to the preceding, and another less distinct from the 
rear edge of the ear; from the lower edge of the forehead four or 
more bands extend backwards between the ears, widening and di- 
verging slightly as they go on to the shoulder. Backward toward 
the tail the central stripe of black becomes broader and deeper black, 
and is continued down the dorsal aspect of the tail. The shoulders, 
neck and flanks are marked by wavy, broken, zebra-like bands of 
é 
