8 



Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



article on the Wild Cat. I have not been able to measure the jaw 

 from the brick earth of Gray's, figured by him ; but the Kent's 

 Hole jaw is almost identical with one of the jaws from the ^^ewhall 

 caves in Ireland, and agrees also with the jaw of the African Cat, 

 with which Owen had perhaps omitted to compare it. Especially 

 are these resemblances to be seen in the cave camassial, which is 

 slightly different in shape in the European Wild Cat from that in tlie 

 African Wild Cat. I have no hesitation in also referring the Oxford 

 specimen to the African Cat. An upper jaw fragment in the British 

 Museum from Happaway cave, with a large upper carnassial, which 

 has not yet been described, was pointed out to me by Dr. Andrews. 

 He informs me that he had identified it as Felis caligata, which is 

 one of the numerous synonyms for the African Wild Cat. I have 

 therefore included it in the above table of measurements. I have 

 also included in this table of measurements the two mandibles from 

 the caves of Gibraltar, described and figured by Busk. In only one of 

 them is the lower carnassial complete. It is 9^ m.m. long, and 

 therefore not quite as large as that in the splendid jaw from !N^ewhall 

 caves (N.H. 88), of which I give an illustration (Plate I., fig. 2). 



When studying these cave remains of cats, I had also an opportunity 

 of comparing them with the jaw of an Egyptian mummy cat in the 

 Dublin Museum (Plate I., fig. 4), which the larger Irish specimens 

 closely resemble. It is interesting to note that no traces of domesti- 

 cation were visible in the teeth of the mummy cat. This seemed to 

 me to indicate that this species led a semi-feral existence at the time 

 when it was the custom in Egypt to preserve and mummify cats. 

 But Dr. Eorsyth Major kindly di'ew my attention to a work in the 

 British Museum Library, which gives the results of a most exhaustive 

 study on this interesting subject by Messrs. Lortet and Gaillard. 

 The authors critically examined fifty skulls of mummy cats, and 

 found that two series were distinguishable (p. 23), viz., a large form 

 exactly like the present African Wild Cat, and a smaller one resem- 

 bling our own Domestic Cat. The latter, however, was more closely 

 related to the wild species than is our Domestic Cat, and it was much 

 rarer than the larger form. Various stages of face reduction seem 

 to be traceable in these mummy cats. 



Messrs. Lortet and Gaillard are of opinion that our Domestic Cat 

 has originated fi'om two wild Egyptian species of cat. A similar 

 opinion, at least, that our Domestic Cat is a descendant of the 

 African, rather than of the European Wild Cat, has already been 

 expressed by Prof. Nehring (p. 27), while Mr. Lydekker (p. 157) 



