DOMESTIC CATS. 
429 
tint, while the lips and soles of the feet are not uncommonly flesh-coloured. The 
occurrence of individuals with one blue and one yellow eye in this breed has been 
already mentioned, while allusion has likewise been made to the opinion that the 
Persian cat is descended from Pallas’s cat of the Asiatic steppes. It was said some 
years ago that the breed of these cats in Angora had been greatly reduced in 
numbers, owing to their skins having been in large demand as furs. 
In Siam there is a breed of cats reserved for royalty, characterised by their 
uniform, and often dark, fawn colour, their blue eyes, and the presence of two or 
more perfectly bald spots on the forehead. Siam, together with Burma, also 
possesses a breed known as the Malay cat, in which the tail is but of half the 
usual length, and is often, through deformity in its bones, tightly curled up into 
a knot. These short-tailed Asiatic cats lead to the mention of the tailless cats of 
the Isle of Man, in which the tail is either reduced to a mere stump, or almost 
wanting. Owing, however, probably to the introduction of ordinary cats from the 
mainland, cats in the Isle of Man are now to be met with having tails of all 
lengths up to 10 inches. Tailless cats, according to Professor Mivart, also exist 
in the Crimea, while they have been recorded by Ivsempfer from Japan. 
The other domestic breeds to which we shall refer include the Mombas cat 
from the eastern coast of Africa, said to be distinguished by its stiff and wiry hair, 
and the Paraguay cat of South America, which is much smaller than ordinary cats, 
with a long body, covered with close-lying short and scanty hair. The description 
of the latter is suggestive of some affinity with the eyra of the same regions. 
Like many of the smaller wild species, the domestic cat has the pupil of the 
eye reduced to a narrow vertical slit when at its smallest dimensions. It also agrees 
with its wild cousins in the extremely small development of the sense of smell, 
depending chiefly upon sight and the exquisite sense of perception residing in the 
so-called “ whiskers.” The effects of domestication have, however, considerably 
increased the reproductive powers of the cat, the tame races having young three or 
four times during the year, and producing from five or six to eight or nine kittens 
at a birth. 
With regard to its intelligence, Dr. Romanes observes that “ the cat is un¬ 
questionably a highly intelligent animal, though, when contrasted with its great 
domestic rival the dog, its intelligence, from being cast in quite a different mould, 
is very frequently underrated. Comparatively unsocial in temperament, wander- 
ingly predacious in habits, and lacking in the affectionate docility of the canine 
nature, this animal has never in any considerable degree been subject to the 
psychological transforming influences whereby a prolonged and intimate associa¬ 
tion with man has so profoundly modified the psychology of the dog. Never¬ 
theless, the cat is not only by nature an animal remarkable for intelligence, but, 
in spite of its naturally imposed disadvantage of temperament, has not altogether 
escaped those privileges of nurture, which unnumbered centuries of domestication 
could scarcely fail to supply. Thus, as contrasted with most of the wild species 
of the genus when tamed from their youngest days, the domestic cat is con¬ 
spicuously of less uncertain temper towards its masters—the uncertainty of temper 
displayed by nearly all the wild members of the feline tribe when tamed being, of 
course, an expression of the interference of individual with hereditary experience. 
