DOMESTIC CATS. 
427 
cat. The late Professor Rolleston, of Oxford, brought forward, however, a con¬ 
siderable amount of evidence to show that the ailuros of the Greeks was really a 
marten, and this view receives some support from the fact that no remains of cats 
have been discovered among the ashes of Pompeii and Herculaneum. That cats 
continued to be comparatively scarce and valuable animals during the middle ages, 
is proved by the laws made in several countries for their special protection, and the 
fines imposed on those who injured or killed them. 
Coming now to the consideration of the various kinds of domestic cats, it may 
be observed, in the first place, that the different breeds of these animals are dis¬ 
tinguished from one another mainly or entirely by such characters as colour, length 
of hair, or, more rarely, length of tail; and that they do not present the marked 
structural differences distinguishing the various breeds of dogs. This general 
similarity may be partly accounted for by the circumstance that all cats are 
required for much the same purpose, so that there has been no special inducement 
for breeders to modify the structure of the creature. A more important factor in 
the case is, however, in our opinion, the greater specialisation of a cat as compared 
with a dog, as is particularly shown in the shortness of the face, the diminution in 
the number of the teeth, and the peculiar structure of the cheek-teeth, it being 
sufficiently obvious that a short-faced and few-toothed animal is not capable of 
those modifications in the length and proportions of the skull, which can be so 
readily induced in creatures with longer muzzles and a greater number of teeth. 
That cats are, however, capable of perpetuating for a longer or shorter period 
structural modifications, is proved by a race of these animals with six toes on each 
foot, in which the peculiarity was inherited to the tenth generation. 
As regards coloration, European cats are commonly either “ tabby,” black, 
white, sandy, tortoiseshell, dun, grey, or the so-called “ blue ” ; the two latter colours 
being more rare than the others. All these different varieties will generally breed 
more or less nearly true if prevented from crossing, but it frequently happens that 
litters will contain different-coloured kittens. Formerly the ordinary European 
cats were short and smooth-haired animals, but of late years there has been a large 
amount of crossing with the Persian breed, which has resulted in the production of 
a number of long-haired cats. The true-bred “ tabby ” cat was, perhaps, the most 
common English variety, its well-marked vertical stripes being not improbably due 
to an original crossing with the wild cat. Its proper ground-colour is grey, marked 
with a black stripe down the back, and having subconcentric bands of the same colour 
on the sides and limbs. The rare grey cats may be regarded as tabbies which have 
lost all their stripes, with the exception of two transverse bars on the fore-legs. 
Black cats may probably be considered analogous to black leopards, since, even 
when purely bred, young kittens of this colour almost invariably show the stripes 
of the “ tabby.” Usually black cats have some white hairs, more especially on the 
throat, and, it is almost needless to remark, by an ever-increasing mixture of white, 
a perfect transition may exist from black to white cats, the same holding good with 
regard to the other breeds. In pure-bred black cats the eyes are of a clear yellow. 
In white cats, on the other hand, the eyes may be either of the ordinary greenish- 
yellow tinge, or of a pure blue, while in some cases one eye may be blue and the 
other yellow, this feature being especially admired in white Persian cats. As is 
