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THE

WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

(FELIS CATUS,)

BY

EDWARD HAMILTON, M.D., F.LS., F.Z.S.

ILLUSTRATED BY P. & P. J. SMIT.

LONDON:
R. H. PORTER, 7 PRINCES STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE, W.

1896.

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AS71424

 

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,

RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET,
PREFACE.

Some few years ago, when reading a review of Knox’s
‘ Autumns on the Spey,’ I came upon the following
passage :—‘‘ There is no British mammal, or reputed
British mammal, of whose character, locality, and
even existence we are so totally ignorant as the
Wild Cat.” This surprised me, particularly as it
was from the pen of a well-known writer on natural
history; so, with the view of giving a somewhat more
connected history of this animal than is usually found
in books on natural history, more especially as it was
the only example of the Feline family indigenous to
Britain, and on the point of becoming extinct, I
commenced collecting together all available informa-
tion relating to this subject, both on the Continent
and in this country.

I did not expect to find any difficulty in being able to
define the Wild Cat (Felis catus) as a distinct species.
The task, however, was not so easy as I anticipated,
for I found that the characteristics relied on by most
authors as specific were not persistent, were at times
absent, and were also often present in the Domestic

a2
iv PREFACE.

Cat. Moreover, on a careful examination of a number
of examples of the Wild Cat of the present time
I found many indications of a mixture of the two
races.

It would seem as if the original Wild Cat, as it
existed in the olden days, has been almost extermi-
nated throughout Europe, and that its place has
been taken by a mongrel race, the result of continual
interbreeding during many centuries (2000 years)
of the Wild and the imported Domestic Cat, whose
original ancestor was probably the Caffer Cat (Felis
caffra).

I am greatly indebted to the Authorities of the
Natural History Department of the British Museum,
especially to Mr. Oldfield Thomas, also to Professor
Stewart of the College of Surgeons, to Dr. Benham
and Mr. Goodrich of the Oxford University Museum,
to Professor Alfred Newton and Mr. Bateson of the
University Museum, Cambridge, to the Rev. Albert
Watson, Mr. Heneage Cocks, Mr. Howard Saunders,
Dr. J. Anderson, Mr. F. E. Beddard, Lord Lilford,
Professor Mivart, and to many other friends for the
assistance so freely and generously accorded to me
during my investigations.

Tam also under very great obligations to Dr. Alfred
Nehring, of the Natural History Department of the
College of Agriculture, Berlin, for the measurements
of a number of the skulls of Felis catus ferus in that
Museum.

To M. Julien Fraipont, Professor of Paleontology
PREFACE. a

in the University of Liége, I am also greatly indebted,
for the measurements and figures of the prehistoric
skulls found in the caverns of Engis and Ingihoul,
in the province of Liége, Belgium.

And I have to return my best thanks to Mr. J.C.
Mitchell, Professor of Zoology at the College of
Agriculture at Gizeh, near Cairo, for the great trouble
he has taken in procuring the measurements of the
intestinal canals of Felis chaus (F. caffra?) and of
the Egyptian Domestic Cat.
CONTENTS.

List of Illustrations .
Literature .
Introduction

Ancestral Descent of the Wild Cat .

Description
Etymology of the a - Cat” .

Figures of Cats on Etruscan vases .

53 es at Tarentum .
Form of Skull of Domestic Cat .
a i Mongrel Cat

Hs a Mummy (African) Cat

2: Wild Cat
», the Nasal Bones .

» the Teeth of the Upper a aw .

Geographical Distribution .

Gestation Period of the Wild and Ticinestic ee
Huxley, Professor, on the term Hybrid
Interbreeding of the Wild and Domestic Cat

PAGE
ix

Xl

. Xvil

. 50-51

59
60

4
74
86
86
viii CONTENTS.

Length of Intestinal Canal in the Wild Cat. . “70
de . 9% African Cats. . 71
" - 5 -% Domestic Cat . 72

a Bones of the Extremities of the Wild
Cat and of Domestic Cat . . . 63-69

Lubbock, Sir John, on the Wild Cat in Lake-
dwellings, Switzerland . . . . . 82, note
Mivart, Professor, on Species. . . . . . 86

Nehring, Dr. Alfred, on Origin of Cats . 80, note
“f $5 +s Distinctive Characters 45, 61
Records of the Wild Cat in England and Wales. 16

re 5 i Scotland . . . . 22
- is 55 Treland (2) . . «27
ae is a on the Continent of
Europe << 4- s-.¢ 8h
Relationship of the two Races . . . . . . 77
Rolleston, Professor, on Introduction into Europe
of the Domestic Cat. . . . . . . . 80
rae gr Wad Cat & ce. ak oe Gee ae A a oe
Synonyms of the Wild Cat . . . . . .. 1

Vernacular Names . ......... 28%
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Full-page Illustrations.
PAGE

The Wild Cat (Felis catus, Linn.). . . Frontispiece.
The Caffer Cat (Felis caffra?, F. chaus ?, F. caligata?). }

To face
The Fettered Cat (Felis maniculata) . . . 3 77
The Wild Cat (Felis catus ferus). (The Mixed
IBTECd.) (© ox. Mel 1! Sr Gel CE he Go _ 86

Illustrations in the Tezt.

Fossil Remains of Wild Cat. (Figs. 1to8.) . 6,7,8,9
Fossil Skulls of Wild Cat from the Engis Cavern . 12,138

The Hind Leg of the Wild and Domestic Cat. . . . 46
Skull of the Wild Cat . . ...... . . 50,51
55 » DomesticCat . . ...... . . 54
fy »  MummyCat ......... . 55
i » Mongrel Cat (Hybrid). . . .. . . 57
Teeth in the upper jaw of Wild Cat. . . . . . . 60
5 i $5 » DomesticCat . . . . 61

Bones of the Extremities of the Wild and Domestic Cat.
(Figs. 20to 31.) . . . . . . . . . 683 to 68
LITERATURE.

Albertus Magnus.—Opera.

Aldrovandus, Ulisses.—De Quadrupedibus digit. ovip. 1687.
Alston, Edward R.—Fauna of Scotland: Mammalia. 1880.
Barnes, Julian.—The Booke of St. Albans. 1496.

Bell, Thos.—A History of British Quadrupeds. 1st ed. 1837 ;

2nd ed. 1874.
Bewick, Thos——A General History of Quadrupeds. 1807,
5th ed.

Bingley, Rev. W.—Memoirs of British Quadrupeds. 1809.
Blaine, D. P—An Encyclopedia of Rural Sports. 1852.
Blainville, H. M. D. de.—Ostéographie. 1889.

Blasius, J. H.—Naturgeschichte der Saugethiere Deutsch-
lands. 1857.

Blumenbach, J. F.—A Manual of the Elements of Natural
History. 1825.

Blyth, Edward.—Asiatic Society of Calcutta, Curator’s
Report.— Proceedings of the Zoological Society of
London, 1868.

Bonney, T. G.—The Alpine Regions of Switzerland. 1868.

Brehm, Alfred Edmund.—lLa vie des Animaux illustrée,
description populaire du Régne Animal. Ed. Franc. revue
par Z. Gerbe, 1868-72.—Thierleben. Allgemeine
Kunde des Thierreichs. 1876-79.

Brisson, M. J.—Le Régne Animal, 1756.

Broderick, W. L.—Zoological Recreations. 1847.

Browne, Montagu.—Zoologist. May 1885.

Buffon, Comte de.—Histoire Naturelle, gén. et part. 1756.

Buller, Thos.—Translation of ‘ Bartholomzus de Proprietati-
bus Rerum.’

Chambers, Robert. — Encyclopedia: article “ Wild Cat.”
1868.

Champfleury.—Les Chats: Histoire ete. 3™° édit. 1869.
xii LITERATURE.

Chenu, Dr. Jean Charles.—Encyclopédie d’ Histoire Naturelle.
Vol. ii, 1855.

Church, John.—A Cabinet of Quadrupeds. 1805.

Clarke, W. Eagle, and W. Denison Roebuck.—A Handbook
of the Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshire. Mammals by
W. D. Roebuck. 1881.

Clermont, Lord.—Quadrupeds and Reptiles in Europe. 1859.

Cocks, A. Heneage.—Zoologist. 1876.

Corbin, G. B.—Zoologist. 1875.

Cordeaux, J—Zoologist.—Wild Cat in Lincolnshire.

Cox, Nicolas.—The Gentleman’s Recreation. 1697.

Crespon, J—Faune Méridionale. 1844.

Cretzschmar, P. J.— Reise im nord. Afrika. 1826-28.

Cuvier, Baron G.—Le Régne Animal, Carn. Digit. 1836-9.

Daniels, Rev. W. B.—Rural Sports. Ed. 1812.

Darwin, Charles.—Variation of Animals and Plants under
Domestication, 2nded. 1875.

Daubenton, M.—Buffon’s ‘ Histoire Naturelle.’ 1756.

Dawkins, Boyd, and W. Ayshford Sanford.—British Pleis-
tocene Mammalia, Paleontographical Society, 1872.
Part IV., 1878, pl. A.

De Foe, Daniel.—A Tour through Great Britain. 1710.

Desmarest, A. G—Mammalogie. 1820-22.

Donovan, E.—The Natural History of British Quadrupeds.
1820.

Elliot, D. G—Monograph of the Felide, or Family of the
Cats. 1878-83.

Encyclopedia Britannica. Article “ Felide.”

Fatio, Victor —Faune des Vertébrés de la Suisse. 1869-82.

Fleming, John.—A History of British Animals. 1828-42.

Flower, W. H., and R. Lydekker.—Introduction to the Study
of Animals Living and Extinct. 1891.

Fontaine, Alphonse de la.—Faune du Pays de Luxembourg.
Part I. Mammiféres. 1868.

Fox, G. Townshend.—Synopsis of the Newcastle Museum.
1827.

Garth, J. C.—Zoologist.

Gervais, Paul.—Histoire Naturelle des Mammiféres. 1854-5,
LITERATURE. Xill

Gesner, Konrad von.—Historia Animalium. Lib. i. 1551.
Ed. 2, 1620.

Gilpin, W.—Picturesque Beauty of the Lakes. 1772.

Gmelin, J. G.—Reise durch Sibirien von dem Jahr 1733
bis 1743.

Gordon, Sir Robert.—The History of the Earldom of Suther-
land.

Gray, J. E—A Catalogue of the Carnivora in the British
Museum. 1869.

Gray, Robert.—The Quadrupeds, Birds, and Fishes of Loch
Lomond and its Vicinity. Glasgow Nat. Hist.Soc. 1877.

Griffith, Edward.—A General and Particular Description of
Vertebrated Animals. 1821.

Hadfield, Capt.—Zoologist. August 1877.

Harting, J. E.—Extinct British Animals.—Origin of the
Domestic Cat.—Field.—Articles in the ‘ Zoologist.’
Harvie-Brown, J. A., and T. E. Buckley.— A Vertebrate Fauna

of the Outer Hebrides. 1888.—A Vertebrate Fauna of
Sutherland, Caithness, and West Cromarty, 1887.—
A Vertebrate Fauna of Argyll and the Inner Hebrides.
1892.
Harvie-Brown, J, A.—Contributions to the ‘ Zoologist.’
Heysham, Dr.— Hutchinson’s History of Cumberland.
Hodgson, B. H.—On the Mammals of India.
Jardine, Sir W.—The Naturalist’s Library. Vol.ii. Mammalia:
the Feline. 1834.
Jeitteles, L. H.—Prodromus Fauna Vert. Hungar. Supcrior.
1862.
Jenyns, Rev. L.—A Manual of British Vertebrate Animals.
1835.
Jonstonus, Johannes.— Historia Naturalis de Quadrupe-
dibus, &c. 1657.
Kingsley, John Sterling.—The Standard Natural History.
Vol. v. 1884.
Klein, J. T.—Quadrupedum dispositio brevisque Historia
Naturalis. 1751. —
Layard, E.—A Catalogue of the South-African Museum.
1861.
xiv LITERATURE.

Le Normant, Frangois—La Grande Gréce. 1881. Vol. i.
pp. 97-109.

Lindsay, Sir Robert.—Chronicles of Scotland. 1526.

Linné, Carl von (Linneus).—Fauna Suecica. 1735.—Systema
Nature. 1748.

Longchamps, M. de Selys--—Faune Belge. 1842.

Macegillivray, W—The Naturalist’s Library. Vol. vii. British
Quadrupeds. 1838.

Macpherson, H.A.—The Vertebrate Fauna of Lakeland. 1892.

Merrett, Christophe.—Pinax Rerum naturalium Britanni-
carum, 1667.

Mivart, St. George.—The Cat. 1881.

Nehring, Professor A.—Berlin. Gesellsciaft naturforschender
Freunde.—Verhandlungen der Berliner anthropolog-
ischen Gesellschaft, &c. 1887.

Nilsson, Sven.—Scandinavisk Fauna. 1820.

Ogérien, Le Frére.—Histoire Naturelle du Jura. Vol. iii.
Zoologie vivante. 1863.

Olaus Magnus.—Histor. Brev. de Felibus seu Catus.

Olivier, Ernest.—Essai sur la Faune de l’Allier. Part I.
Vertébrés, 1879.—La Faune du Doubs. 1883.

Owen, Sir Richard.—A History of British Fossil Mammals
and Birds. 1846.

Pallas, P. 8.—Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica. 1831.

Pascoe, F. P.—-A List of British Vertebrate Animals. 1885.

Pennant, Thos.—A History of Quadrupeds. 1781.

Pliny, Caius Secundus.—Historie Naturalis. Lib. xxxvii.

Polwhele, Rev, R—A History of Cornwall. 1806.

Pontoppidan, Bishop.—A Natural History of Norway.
Translated from the Danish. 1755.

Pritchard, J. C—-A Natural History of Man. 1843.

Ray, John.—Synopsis Methodica Animalium Quadrupedum,
1693.

Richardson, Sir John.—The Museum of Natural History,
1860.

Roebuck, W. D.—Mammalia, in Handbook of the Vertebrate
Fauna of Yorkshire. 1881.

Salmon, Dr. W.—The Compleat English Physician. 1693.
LITERATURE. XV

St. John, Charles -—A Tour in Sutherland. 1884.—Wild
Sports and Natural History of the Highlands. 1878.—
Natural History and Sport in Morayshire. 1882.

St.-Hilaire, Isidore Geoffroy.—Histoire Naturelle générale
des Régnes Organiques. 1854-62.

Scaliger, Jul. Cesar.—Comment. Aristotelis Hist. de Ani-
malibus. 1619.

Schmerling, Dr., and Marcel de Serres.—Recherches sur les
Ossemens Fossiles découverts dans les Cavernes de la
province de Liége. 1833.—Recherches sur les Ossemens
des Cavernes de Lunel-Viel. 1839.

Schmidt, Oscar.—The Mammalia in relation to Primeval
Times. 1830.

Schreber, J. C. D. von.—Die Saugethiere in Abbildungen
nach der Natur. 1775-92.

Scott, Sir Walter —Familiar Letters of. Pub. 1893.

Selby, P. J—Quadrupeds and Birds of the County of Suther-
land. 1835. ,

Shakespeare, W.—The Merchant of Venice.—The Taming of
The Shrew, &c.

Shaw, George.—Gen. Zool. 1800.

Sibbald, Sir R—Prodromus Hist. Nat. in Scotia illustrata.
1864.

Stark, John.—Elem. of Nat. Hist. 1828.

Straus-Diirckheim, H.—Anatomie Descriptive et Comparative
du Chat. 1845.

Strutt.—The Habits of the Anglo-Normans.

Temminck, C. J—Monographie de Mammalogie. 1827.

Thompson, W.—Nat. Hist. of Ireland. Vol. iv. 1856.

Tschudi, F. von.—Das Thierleben der Alpenwelt. 1854.

Turton, W.—British Fauna, 1807.

Villardi, G. F—Fauna d’ Italia. Pt. I. Mammif., per
Emilio Cornalia. 1871.

Weir, Harrison.—Our Cats and all about them. 1889.
INTRODUCTION.

Tue Wild Cat (Felis catus, Linn.) is a member of
the smaller race of the Feline family which, with
the exception of the West Indies and the Australian
region*, is generally distributed throughout the
World.

Messrs. Flower and Lydekker, in their ‘Intro-
duction to the Study of Animals,’ remark. that “ not-
withstanding the considerable diversity in external
appearance and size between different members of
this extensive genus, the structural differences are
but slight and so variously combined in different
species that the numerous attempts hitherto made
to subdivide it are all unsatisfactory and artificial.”
Among the principal differences they mention the
form of the cranium, the length of the tail, the shape
of the pupil of the eye, and the condition and
coloration of the fur.

In the smaller race of Cats the pupils of the eyes
are, as a rule, of an oval form and contract when
exposed to a bright light, or when excited by anger,
to an oat-shaped oval or to a vertical linear slit.

* Wild Cats, the offspring of Domestic Cats which have taken to
a feral life, are now, we believe, prevalent in New Zealand and

probably also on the Australian continent.
XViil INTRODUCTION.

Elliot, in his ‘ Monograph of the Felide,’ states that
all the smaller examples of the Cats, with the excep-
tion of the Ocelot (Felis pardalis), have oval pupils ;
but Dr. W. T. Blanford, in his ‘Fauna of British
India,’ states that the Fishing Cat (Felis viverrina)
and the Bengal Cat (Felis bengalensis) have circular
pupils, the latter perhaps elliptical in a strong light.

Dr. G. Lindsay Johnson, ‘Proceedings of the Zoolo-
gical Society,’ May 1894, states that the pupil of the
Wild Cat is circular and contracts to an oval. This
is contrary to our experience. We have examined
a number of living examples from different parts of
Europe, as well as from Scotland, and have with-
out exception found that on exposure to a bright
light the pupils have contracted to a vertical linear
slit.

If we can judge from the knowledge we have of
the Wild Cats of different countries interbreeding
with domesticated Cats, we may almost with certainty
conclude that the smaller varieties interbreed freely
with each other and produce fertile offspring, and
that some of the Asiatic species—/. bengalensis with
its fourteen synonyms, for example—may be the result
of this promiscuous intercourse. Blanford states
that many of the village Domestic Cats are similarly
spotted to Felis ornata in localities where this Cat
is found; and that many examples of the present
form of F. torguata are probably descendants of tame
Cats run wild, the aboriginal race being the source
of the Indian Domestic Cats.
INTRODUCTION. Xix

In the smaller races the kittens are born with closed
eyelids, and the parents for the most part discard their
young when they cease to be nourished by the mother.

In the larger Felide some appear to be mono-
gamous and to pair for life. The Lion remains
with the Lioness whilst the cubs are young and
helpless and assists in providing them with food
after they have ceased to be nourished by the mother,
the cubs remaining with their parents until they are
nearly full-grown.

It is the same with the Tiger. Sir Joseph Fayrer
states that the cubs remain with the parents until
they are nearly full-grown, and others have verified
the truth of his observation. The late General
Douglas Hamilton (‘Sport in Southern India’)
records having seen a family, consisting of the two
parents and three nearly full-grown cubs, migrating
from one locality to another.

According to the observations of Mr. Hunt, the
Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens at Dublin,
the cubs of the larger race are not always born with
closed eyelids. He writes :—“ In some cases we find
cubs born with their eyes open and in others not so.
In 1894 we had two Lionesses which had cubs—in
one the cubs had their eyes open at birth and in the
other they were blind for three days after birth; ”
and adds this remark: ‘“‘ We hardly ever find them
blind after three days.”

In the larger Felide the pupils of the eyes are

round and never contract to a vertical slit.
b
xx INTRODUCTION.

Dr. G. Lindsay Johnson, J. c., states that “In the
Lion, Tiger, Puma, and Leopard, in fact in all the
large Felide, the pupil is invariably round, and as a
rule retains its circular shape when contracting, thus
forming a decided contrast to the smaller Felide.”

The different species of the larger race never
interbreed with each other. There is no record of
any hybrid having ever been found in a wild state,
which certainly would have been the case with our
present knowledge had such existed.

A few instances have been recorded of a Lion
and a Tigress interbreeding in captivity; and Sir W.
Jardine gives the figure of a hybrid between these two
animals in vol. ii. of ‘The Naturalist’s Library’; and
another instance is recorded from the same menagerie
(Mr. Aitken’s) of hybrids between an Asiatic Lion
bred in this country and a Tigress, being born at
Windsor. The cubs all died before arriving at
maturity *.

The chief food of the Wild Cat is the flesh of the
smaller Mammalia and birds—Hares, Rabbits, the
different species of Voles, Squirrels, Rats, Moles, &c.,
the Game-birds, Pigeons, and the smaller birds.

Mr. Heneage Cocks writes that the Wild Cats
he kept in confinement for a number of years were

* In Allen’s ‘ Naturalist’s Library,’ 1895, which appears to be a
reprint with additions of Sir W. Jardine’s ‘ Naturalist’s Library,’ it is
stated that six litters of hybrids were produced in Mr. Aitken’s
menagerie between 1824 and 1833. One male, it is stated, lived
for ten years in the Liverpool Zoological Gardens.
INTRODUCTION. Xxi

particularly fond of the Water-Vole ; they would
also eat Guinea-pigs and Weasels, and one of them
was suspected of killing and eating a Polecat.

Domestic Cats are known to be particularly partial
to fish, and there is one Asiatic variety, the Fishing
Cat (felis viverrina), which lives almost entirely
on fish and shellfish, as Ampullarie and Unios.
It is also stated that this Cat has a very dis-
agreeable smell and is extremely fierce.
THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

(FELIS CATUS.)

 

Order CARNIVORA.
Suborder FISSIPEDIA,
Section ASLUROIDEA.
Family FELID.
Genus FELIS.

Species FELIS SYLVESTRIS, Gesner.
Feus catus, Linneus.

Synonyms.

FeLis syLvestRis, Gesner, Konrad von, Hist. Anim. 1551;
Aldrovandus, Ulisses, De Quadrupedibus digitatis ovip.
1637; Olaus Magnus, Hist. Brev. de Felibus seu Catus ;
Buffon, G. L. Comte de, Hist. Nat. 1755; Brisson, M.,
Le Régne Animal, 1756; Jonstonus, Johannes, Hist.
Nat. de Quadrup. 1759; Schreber, J. C. D. von, Die

Saugethiere, 1775, vol. iii.

Fexis sytvatica, Merrett, Christophe, Pinax Rerum natura-

lium Brit. 1667.

Fexuis acrests, Scaliger, Jul. Cesar, Comment. Aristotelis

Hist. de Animalibus, 1619.

Fetis pomestica seu catus, Ray, John, Synop. Method.

Anim. Quad. 1693.

Catus syLvestris, Sibbald, Sir R., Prodromus Hist. Nat. in

Scot. illust. 1684.
B
2 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Catus sYLVEsTRIS FERUS vel FERALIS, Klein, J. T., Quad-
ruped. dispos. brevisque Hist. Nat. 1751.

Catus sYLVEsTRIs vel Ferris sYLVESTRIS FERUS, Pennant,
Thos., Hist. of Quad. 1781.

Feuis catus, Linneus, Carl von, Fauna Suec. 1746; Bewick,
Thos., A General Hist. of Quadrupeds, 1807; Stark,
John, Elem. of Nat. Hist. 1823; Temminck, Mono-
graphie de Mammalogie, 1827; Jardine, Sir W.,
Naturalist’s Library, Mammalia, 1834; Jenyns, Rev. L.,
Manual of British Vertebrate Animals, 1835; Cuvier,
G. L., Baron, Régne Animal, Carn. Digit. 1836 ;
Bell, Thos., A Hist. of British Quadrupeds, 1837, 1874;
Macgillivray, W., Nat. Libr., British Quadrupeds,
1838; Donovan, E., Nat. Hist. Brit. Quad. 1815;
Blasius, H., Naturgesch. der Saugethiere Deutschlands,
1857; Brehm, A. E., Thierleben, Leipsic, 1876-79.

Fe.is catus Ferus, Linneus, Curl von, System. Natur.,
Ed. xiii. by J. F. Gmelin, 1788.

FuLis catus, var, syLvestris, Fleming, John, A Hist. of Brit.
Animals, 1828.

Feuis catus rErvs, Bingley, Rev. W., Brit. Quadrupeds, 1809.

Vernacular Names.

Enousu : Wild Cat, Wood-Cat, British Tiger.

Garuic: Cat fiad-haich.

We su: Cath-goed.

Frencu: Chat sauvage, Chat des Bois, Chat haret.

German: Wilde Katze, Graue Katze, Wildkatze, Baum-
ritter.

Durca: Wilde Kat.

Berean: Chat sauvage; Wel Katz, Tchet sauvatche
(Wallon).

Spanisu: Gato montés, Gato romano.

Tratian: Gatto silvatico.

Russian : Stepnaja Koschka,

GREEK : KaTTOS.

Porisu : Kot dziki.
ETYMOLOGY.

oO

ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD “CAT.”

Accorpine to Murray’s ‘New English Dictionary,’
the word Cat is of unknown origin, but exists in
various languages as far back as their records go.
It is found in old western Germanic as early as
400-450 a.p. In old high German it is Chazza,
Chatero; in middle German Kattaro.

Murray says that no form of the word is preserved
in Gothic ; it is not, therefore, certain that it can be
traced back to the old Teutonic period,

CHAMPFLEURY considers it of Celto-Germanic
origin.

In Gaelic it is Cat, Cat fiad-haich (Wild Cat).
In Welsh and Cornish Cath. In old French Cat,
Chater.

In Latin the word is not found earlier than the
first century of our era, if Martial’s epigram (Catte,
lib. xiii. 69),

“ Pannonicas nobis nunquam dedit Umbria cattas :
Mavult hee domino mittere dona Pudens,”
applies to this animal.

PauiaDius, who wrote his work on Agriculture
circa 350 A.D., mentions an animal called Catus or
Cattus as useful in granaries for the destruction of
mice. This must surely apply to the domestic race,
and it is probable that the word Cat as used in the
old languages refers to the Domestic Cat.

The term xatroc, katta, in Byzantine Greek was
employed to designate the domesticated Cat brought
from Egypt.

B2
4 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.

Tue European Wild Cat had an extensive geo-
graphical range, including Great Britain, France,
the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Bohemia,
Hungary, Poland, Transylvania, Galicia, the Caucasus
as far as the Caspian, Southern Russia, Italy, Spain,
Greece, Roumelia, Bulgaria, Servia, Turkey in
Europe, and some parts of Northern Asia.

Its favourite haunts were forests, with masses of
rocks or cliffs interspersed with trees. In the crevices
of these rocks or the hollow boles of the trees it
made its lair.

ABEL CHapMan (‘ Wild Spain’) found them on
the shores of what he calls the Betican Wilderness,
amongst the giant heather, bamboos, and wild gorse,
where their prey, in the shape of bird-life, was
abundant; in the scrub-clad plains bounding the
Marisma—the haunt of the Flamingoes—amongst
the rabbits which frequented the open spaces; in
the immense cork-woods, amidst the tree-heaths and
arbutus which border the stagnant pools on the Cistus
plains; and amongst the cane-brakes and bamboos in
Dofiana.

They breed, he says, in the sierras in crags and
rabbit-burrows, and in plains the young are often
produced in nests built in trees or among the tall
bamboos in the cane-brakes.

Chapman states that the young Wild Cats are
quite the most ferocious and utterly untamable beasts
of which he had any experience. ‘The mixture of
fear and fury they exhibit in captivity is inde-
scribable.”
°

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 3

At the present time the Wild Cat has become
almost extinct in many of the above districts.
Examples may perhaps occasionally still be found
in the uninhabited forests and mountains of Hungary
and Transylvania, and occasionally in Spain and
Greece, as well as in the Caucasus and in some of
the Swiss Cantons, but the original race has in most
countries interbred with the Domestic Cat wherever
the latter has penetrated.
6 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE,

ANCESTRAL DESCENT.

Tue Wild Cat of Europe, the Felis sylvestris of
the earlier naturalists, the Felis catus of Linneus,
the only indigenous representative of the feline
family in Britain, derives its ancestral descent in
all probability directly from one or both of the
species of Cat whose osseous remains have been
found in the Pleistocene deposits both in this country
and on the Continent, intermingled with the bones of
the great Cave-Lion (Felis spelea), the great Cave-
Bear (Ursus speleus), the Rhinoceros (R. tichorhinus),
the Mammoth, and other gigantic mammals of that
period of the Earth’s crust.
These osseous remains consist of :—

I. A portion of the lower jaw (left mandible) found
in the brick-earth of Grays Thurrock (fig. 1),
which, according to Owen (‘British Fossil
Mammals and Birds’), is undistinguishable
from the analogous parts of the still existing
species of Wild Cat.

Fig. 1. Nat. size.

 

Ii. A portion of the right mandible of the lower
jaw found in Kent’s Hole, Torquay (fig. 2),
which is stated by the same authority to
accord precisely in colour and composition
ANCESTRAL DESCENT. 7

with the fossils of the extinct quadrupeds
found in the same cave.

Fig. 2. Nat. size.

 

III. Portion of the ramus of a lower jaw from
Bleadon Cave, Mendip Hills, Somersetshire.

See fig. 3.
Fig. 3. Nat. size.
b

   

Iv. Right half of the lower jaw from the Gower
Caves, St. Asaph (fig. 4), together with a
right humerus and a portion of the tibia
(figs. 5 and 6).

Fig. 4. Nat. size.

 

v. A large number of bones, including portions of
skulls, from the Pleistocene deposits in the
caverns near Liége, Belgium, and in the same
deposits at Lunel-Viel, France, which have
THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

been described by Dr. ScuMERLING (‘ Oss. Foss.
de Liége, vol. ii.) and by MM. Marcen pe
SERRES, DUBREUIL, and JEAN-J EAN (‘Recherches

Fig. 5. Nat. size. Fig. 6. Nat. size.

 

 

sur les Ossemens fossiles des Cavernes de
Lunel-Viel,’ 1839, p. 110), and are now in the
Museum of the University of Liége.
ANCESTRAL DESCENT. 9

Figs. 7 and 8 are the right and left half of
the lower jaw of a Mummy Cat (J. manicu-
lata) and a Wild Cat (F. catus, present time),
which are given for comparison.

Fig. 8. Nat. size.

 

vi. Skulls (8) found in the caverns of Engis and
Ingihoul, province of Liége, in the possession
of M. Juuien Fraipont, Professor of Paleeonto-
logy in the University of Liége. See figs. 9
and 10 (pp. 12, 18), two of the above.

Dr. ScHMERLING, from the larger size of some of the
bones, concluded that there were two species, and
divided them into (1) Felis catus magna, (2) Felis
catus minuta ; but Owen considered that this differ-
ence in size did not vary from the standard of the
existing Wild Cat more than would be due to age
and sex.

Professor Boyp Dawkins and Mr. AysHrorD San-
ForD (“ Brit. Pleist. Mamm.,” Paleontogr. Society’s
Trans., 1872-73), however, contend that the larger
bones found in the Liége caverns and those from the
Bleadon Cave belong to a larger animal than Felis
catus, and they come to the conclusion that a species
of Wild Cat, very closely allied to Felis caffer, lived
in Northern Belgium and France in the Pleistocene
10 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Period; and although they will not say, owing to
the very fragmentary evidence, that F. caffer also
inhabited Britain, yet from the similarity of the jaw
found in Bleadon Cave to that of F. caffer, it almost
amounts to a certainty. Indeed they say: “ There is
nothing unreasonable in the suggestion of a Cat now
found only in Africa having once ranged over Europe,
since the Spotted Hyena, the Hippopotamus, and
the Panther were members of the Pleistocene fauna,
as well as being now associated with Felis caffer in
Africa.”

If this supposition be correct, it would seem that
the smaller species was enabled to survive through-
out Europe during all the geological changes, owing
to its natural food, in the shape of the leporine and
other rodent forms, continuing to exist, as, according
to Owen, there is no difference between the fossil bones
of the Pleistocene species of Zepus and Arvicola and
those of the present time; while the larger species,
from some cause as yet unexplained, became extinct.

From the measurements of the bones and skulls, it
would appear that one of the Wild Cats of the
Pleistocene age was a smaller animal than Felis
sylvestris of Gesner or Felis catus of Linneus.
M. Jutten Fratpont has forwarded to me the measure-
ments of eight skulls which have been found in
the deposits of the caverns of Engis and Ingihoul,
near Liége, Belgium, intermingled with the bones
of the Mammoth, Rhinoceros, &c.; these measure-
ments range from 69 to 77 mm. in basal length,
and from 39 to 48 mm. in breadth over the cranium ;
while the skulls of Felis catus (the Wild Cat of
historic times) range from 78 to 89 mm. in basal
length, and from 44 to 52 mm. in cranial breadth
12 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

 

Skull found in Engis Cavern, near Licge. Nat. size.
ANCESTRAL DESCENT.

 

Skull found in Engis Cavern, near Liége.

Nat. size.

18
ANCESTRAL DESCENT. 15

(see figs. 13, 14, 15). The humerus of a supposed
Wild Cat found in Gower Cave, St. Asaph, measures
84 mm. in length, while that of the Wild Cat of
later days measures 109 mm. (compare figs. 5 & 6,
p. 8, with figs. 20 & 28, pp. 63 & 67).

Osseous remains of Wild Cats of a much later
period than those mentioned above have been found
in the peat-deposits and elsewhere mixed with the
bones of extinct forms of Deer, Ox, and other animals.

M. Larter (“On Human Remains,” Ann. des Sci.
Nat.) (Natural History Review, 1862) states that
the osseous remains of a Cat supposed to be Felis
catus have been found in the human sepulchral cave
at Aurignac mixed with the bones of Felis spelea,
Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, &c. This
sepulchral vault is considered by Lartet to be of the
highest antiquity, as indicated by the existence of
almost entire bones of the great Cave-Bear, which
appear to have been introduced into the cave by
the hand of Man. “ Paleontographically,” he says,
‘the human race of Aurignac belongs to the remotest
antiquity to which, up to the present time, the exist-
ence of Man or the vestiges of his industry can be
traced. ‘This race was evidently contemporary with
the Aurochs, Reindeer, Gigantic Elk, Rhinoceros,
Hyena, &c., and, what is more, with the great Cave-
Bear (Ursus speleus), which would appear to have
been the earliest to disappear in the group of great
mammals generally regarded as characteristic of the
last geological period.”
16 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

RECORDS OF THE WILD CAT IN ENGLAND
AND WALES.

A NUMBER of old deeds and charters still extant, and
mentioned by Mr. J. E. Harting in his ‘ Notes on the
Hunting of the Wild Cat,’ sufficiently prove that a
Wild Cat inhabited the greater part of England up
to the end of the fifteenth century. In ]205, the sixth
year of the reign of King John, that monarch granted
a licence to one Gerard Camville, to hunt the Hare,
the Fox, and the Wild Cat in all the King’s forests ;
and the Wild Cats must have been very numerous in
those days, as some seventy years earlier than the
above date, viz. in 1127, the skins of Cats (presum-
ably Wild Cats, as at that time the Domestic Cat was
rare and valuable) were used for the lining of dresses.
Archbishop Corsoy te, in his Canons, ordered that no
abbess or nun should use any more costly fur than is
made of Lamb- or Cat-skins; and Srrurt (‘ Habits of
the Anglo-Normans’) states that there is a decree
extant of Edward the Third, which ordained that no
tradesman or yeoman, or their wives and children,
should wear any kind of fur, except that of Lambs,
Rabbits, Foxes, or Cats.

During the reigns of John, Richard II., Edward II.
and III., licences were granted, and lands held under
the Crown, for hunting various chases and for the
destruction of Wolves, Foxes, Martens, Wild Cats,
and other vermin, in the counties of Buckingham,
Devonshire, Essex, Huntingdon, Lincolnshire, North-
amptonshire, Oxford, Rutland, &c.

In the ‘ Booke of St. Albans,’ printed by Wynxyn
DE Wobe in 1496, the Wild Cat is mentioned among
the “Bestys of chase sweete and stynking”; and
RECORDS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 17

three years previously he printed a translation by
Tuomas BuLter of ‘ Bartholomeus de Proprietatibus
Rerum,’ in which the Wild Cat is Lbkened to a Leo-
pard with a great mouth, sharp teeth, a cruel heart,
dwelleth in woods, and lives on small wild beasts, as
Conies and Hares.

The increased cultivation of the land, with the
gradual thinning of the forests and woodlands, drove
the Wild Cat from its more southern haunts; but it
must have been still plentiful in the midland and
northern counties during the 16th, 17th, and part of
the 18th centuries. SHAKESPEARE, a keen observer of
all things in nature, writing in 1593, refers, in his
play of “The Merchant of Venice,” to the habits of
the Wild Cat :—

“The patch is kind enough; but a huge feeder.
Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
More than the wild cat.”
And, again, in “ The Taming of The Shrew,” written
in 1606, he makes Petruchio say to Katharine :
“Thou must be married to no man but me:
For I am he, am born to tame you, Kate ;

And bring you from a wild cat to a Kate
Conformable, as other household Kates.”

Also in Macbeth, Act iv. :
“Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.”

A Dr. WILuIAM SaLuon, who wrote a curious book
called the ‘Compleat English Physician, or The
Druggist’s Shop opened,’ in 1693, mentions the Wild
Cat, of which he says ‘‘there are three kinds, the
Tame Cat, the Wild Wood Cat, and the Cat of the
Mountain, all of which are of one nature, and agree
much in one shape except as to their magnitude.

C
18 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

The Wild Cat being much larger than the Tame, and
the Cat of the Mountain larger than the Wild Cat.”

Some portions of the Wild Cat appear in his time
to have been employed as medical aids :—‘‘1st. The
flesh of the Wild Cat is particularly helpful to the
gout. 2. The fat is hot, dry, emollient, discussive,
and anodyne; mixed with palm oil and oil of aniseed,
dissolves tumours, eases pain, prevails against nodes
on the skin and the cold gout. 3. The blood of the
tail of a Bore Cat, 10 drops mixed with six grains of
salt of manskull, with 10 grains of the powder of
ox horns, will cure the falling sickness. 4. Certain
excrements made into a powder, and mixed with
mustard seed, juice of onions, and bear’s grease,
enough to form an ointment, cures baldness and
the Alopecia.”

In 1697, Nicouas Cox (‘The Gentleman’s Recrea-
tion, or a Treatise giving the best directions for
hunting and killing all manner of chases used in
England, &c.’), in his remarks upon the Marten and
the Wild Cat, says :—‘ This (the Martern) and the
Wild Cat are a sort of vermin, which are here in
England commonly to hunt and as necessary to be
hunted as any vermin can be. For the question may
be doubtful, whether either Fox or Badger do more
hurt than the Wild Cat doth, since there are so
many warrens everywhere throughout the kingdom of
England which are very much infested by the Wild
Cat. It is the opinion of long experienced huntsmen
that she leaveth as great a scent, and maketh as good
a cry for the time as any vermin that is hunted,
especially the Martern passeth all other vermin for
sweetness of scent and her Case is anoble Furr. The
Wild Cat’s Case is not so good, but it is very warm
RECORDS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 19

and medicinal for several aches and pains in the bones
and joints; also her grease is very good for sinews
that are shrunk.”

According to the Rev. J. Morton (‘ History of the
County of Northampton’) the Wild Cat was still to
be found in that county as lateas1712. He says :—
‘We now meet with them, though more rarely, since
the woods have been thinned. They here are called
‘ Birdies,’ and those which are found in Whittlewood
Forest (Whittlewood lies between Towcester, Stoney
Stratford, and Buckingham) are of very large size,
and in their wailing noise and other properties they
agree with our domestic Cats, but their skin seems
to be tanned as it were with the sun and weather.”

In the county of Cumberland, when DaNiEL DEFor
made his tour through Great Britain, 1710, Wild
Cats, according to his account, were abundant: he
made an excursion in his journey through Cumber-
land to Christenbury Craig, and came upon some
caves amongst the rocks where the moss-troopers
formerly retreated for security, and where others had
at times taken up their abode; but at present, he
says, ‘“‘it has no inhabitants but Wild Cats, of which
there are many, the largest I ever saw.” H. A. Mac-
PHERSON, in the prefatory notice on the destruction of
wild animals, in his ‘ Vertebrate Fauna of Lakeland,’
gives a list of Wild Cats killed between 1706 and
1755 in the parishes of Martindale and Barton,
which amounted to fifty. By 1790 the number had
considerably diminished, for Dr. Jonny Heysiam, in
Hutchinson’s ‘ History of Cumberland,’ 1794, states
that “very few Wild Cats are now to be met with in
any of our woods, except those bordering on the

lakes, and even there they are far from numerous.”
c 2
20 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Reports of the early part of the 19th century show
a great diminution in the number of Wild Cats, even
in the most northern counties, and it is probable that
in the midlands and in the south, east, and west it
had become practically extinct.

The Rev. W. Binciey, in his ‘Memoirs of British
Quadrupeds,’ 1809, states that a century ago Wild
Cats were to be found in the woods of Northampton-
shire, but now they are all destroyed.

H. Scort, ‘British Field Sports,’ 1818, writes :—
“As to the Wild Cat, a chase of some name in
ancient records, the breed seems now to be extinct
in our country, not so much belike, as one being
kept even in Cheshire, to teach people how to grin.”
And W. D. Roesvuck, in the ‘ Vertebrate Fauna of
Yorkshire,’ states that the Hambledon Hills were
the final refuge of this animal in Yorkshire, and that -
the last example was killed by Mr. John Harrison at
his farm at Murton, near Hawnby, in the winter
of 1840. He also says that the evidence of the
former existence of the Wild Cat in South Yorkshire
is confined to entries in the Churchwardens’ accounts
at Ecclesfield of sums paid in 1589 and 1626 for
the destruction of Wylde Cats, and to a legend of
doubtful origin of an encounter, fatal to both, between
a Wild Cat and a man of the family of Cresacre
at Burnborough.

In Northumberland the Wild Cat was supposed to
have lingered as late as 1853, the last being killed by
Lord Ravensworth at Eslington.

The different reports in the ‘ Zoologist’ and else-
where of a Wild Cat being killed near Godalming in
1849, in Devonshire in 1865, in Cumberland in
1871, in Hampshire, near Ringwood, in 1875, in
RECORDS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 21

Hertfordshire in 1875, in Lincolnshire in 1881, and
in the Isle of Wight in 1877, must be taken
‘‘cum grano.” ‘They were probably the offspring of
Domestic Cats run wild. Wild they were no doubt,
but not the genuine Felis sylvestris. The editor of
the ‘ Zoologist,’ remarking on one of these reports,
says :—“ We are extremely sceptical in regard to
the alleged existence of Wild Cats in the south of
England at the present day, and notwithstanding the
colour and large size of many of the animals killed,
we cannot help regarding them as of hearth-rug
ancestry.”

The Wild Cat of medieval days, the Felis sylvestris
of the old authors, has been quite extinct in England
for nearly half a century, supposing even that the
Cat killed by Lord Ravensworth was an example
of the old race; but it is probable its extermination
would date many years previous to 18953.

In Wales the Wild Cat must have been as preva-
lent as in England, or even more so, owing to the
nature of the country. When it became extinct is
difficult to ascertain.

Professor Boyp Dawk1xs states that the Wild Cat
still lingers in South Wales, near Tenby; and other
writers say the same, without giving any authority.
Professor Mivart considers that the Wild Cat has
been extinct in Wales for certainly the last twenty
years.

The last record of a Wild, or supposed Wild, Cat
in Wales is from a Mr. W. Jones, who states that
one was trapped in Montgomeryshire in 1864, which
weighed 11 pounds.
22 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

RECORDS OF THE WILD CAT IN SCOTLAND.

‘TuERE is no very early record of the Wild Cat
north of the Tweed, where it continued to exist long
after its extinction south of that river.

Rozert Liypsay (‘The Chronicles of Scotland,’
vol. ii. p. 846) gives an account of a great hunt at
the Earl of Athol’s in 1528, in which James V. took
part, where a great number of large and small beasts
were slain, amongst them Wild Cats; and Sir RoBerr
SrtsBpatD (Prodr. Hist. Nat. in Scotia illust., 1684)
gives a description of the Wild Cat.

From the nature of the country and from the
scattered and scanty population, the Wild Cat con-
tinued to hold its own over the greater part of Scotland
until a very recent period. BrneLeEy, writing in 1809,
says that ‘“‘in the united parishes of Loch Goil Head
and Kilmorich in Argyleshire, Wild Cats are more
numerous than Foxes, and will at times, especially
when wounded, attack human beings.”

Sir Water Scort, writing in 1824 (‘Familiar
Letters,’ 1893), states that the gardener at Lochore in
Fifeshire, one John Macleod, told him that he had
destroyed, of vermin, two Wild Cats, eight household
Cats gone wild, five Polecats, one of terrible size and
weight, which Sir Walter thinks must have been a
Marten Cat, five Weasels, three Whitretts, besides
sundry Magpies.

SeLBy (‘Quadrupeds and Birds of the County
of Sutherland, 1835) states that the Wild or
Mountain Cat is very plentiful in the mountain dis-
tricts, where they attain a great size, and at times
commit great ravages upon the young lambs in Assynt;
upon the Ben More range they are very numerous,
RECORDS IN SCOTLAND. 23

and find secure shelter and protection in the numerous
caverns and holes in the limestone districts.

Maceiuivray (Nat. Libr. vol. ii. 1838) says that the
Wild Cat appears to be more abundant in the woods
of the counties of Perth, Aberdeen, and Argyle than
in any other part of Scotland, and specimens from
these districts are not unfrequently sent to Edinburgh
to be preserved.

The same author, writing in 1855, reports that the
Wild Cat had become extremely rare.

Ropert GRay, in a list of the Quadrupeds of
Loch Lomond and its vicinity, in 1877, states that
this undoubted species has been repeatedly trapped
in the immediate vicinity of the Loch.

The late E. R. Austoy (‘The Fauna of Scotland,’
1880) says that this animal, once generally distri-
buted over the mainland, is now totally extirpated in
the lowlands and in many parts of the highlands. It
is still to be found, however, in the wilder districts
of most of the northern counties, especially in the
Deer forests, where it is left comparatively undis-
turbed. ‘Till of late years its southern outpost was
the mountainous country about Loch Lomond; but it
is now extinct in that neighbourhood, and Alston
believed that none exist south of the northern district
of Argyle and Perthshire. There appears to be no
evidence that the Wild Cat was ever found in any of
the Islands.

J. A. Harviz-Brown, in “The Past and Present
Distribution of the Rarer Animals of Scotland ” (Zool.
1881), gives a list of the different counties in which the
Wild Cat has-been killed or last seen in the present
century. He states that in Dumfries, Kirkcudbright-
shire, and Wigtonshire not one has been seen for
24 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

the last 50 years. The last traditional Wild Cat in
the museum at Dumfries proved on close inspection to
be an unusually finely stuffed example of the common
Tabby. The last Wild Cat killed in Dumbartonshire
was in 1857, in Stirlingshire in 1842. In Perthshire,
where formerly it was abundant, a correspondent
informs Harvie-Brown that an example of the Wild
Cat has not been seen for the last twenty years, and
adds that many so-called Wild Cats have been proved
to be, on close examination, Domestic Cats which had
taken to the woods.

In Forfarshire and Kincardineshire there is no
record since 1850. In Aberdeenshire the last reported
was in 1877, and in Banff, Elgin, and Nairn no
record for the last fifty years. In some parts of
Inverness-shire, Harvir-Brown states that it is still
found about Arisaig and Moidart on the west coast,
and in Lochaber and on Ben Alder further inland.

In Argyleshire a Wild Cat was killed in 1879, near
Strontian House, Sunart, and one was taken alive
at Ranachan, in Camusain Wood, on the north side
of Loch Sunart. A correspondent stated to Harvie-
Brown that in 1875 “the lady of a neighbouring
proprietor applied to me for assistance in procuring
from fifteen to twenty Wild Cat skins for a lining to
a gentleman’s ‘dreadnought’ or ulster. In a few
weeks, by purchase or otherwise, the requisite number
was obtained. Most were, no doubt, killed between
1872 and 1875, and were procured from the districts of
Arisaig, Moidart, Ardnamurchan, Sunart, Ardgour,
and Morvern.”

This has since been proved to be quite incorrect.
They were the skins of Crofters’ cats, common house
tabbies, all very fine and large, and it is more than
RECORDS 1N SCOTLAND. 25

probable that most of the Wild Cats reported as
genuine Wild Cats for the last fifty years have the
same origin. Four very fine examples of the mixed
breed have been taken within the last year, 1895-6,
in Morvern, Argyleshire—the tails very thick, the
rings and tip black.

The same author, writing in 1881, considers that
the Wild Cat has become almost, if not entirely,
extinct, all south and east of a line commencing,
roughly speaking, at Oban, continuing north-west of
the junction of the three counties of Perth, Forfar,
and Aberdeen, thence across the corner of the Dee to
Tomintoul, Banff, to the city of Inverness.

Further north Messrs. Harvis-Brown and T. E.
Bucxtiey (‘A Vertebrate Fauna of Sutherland, Caith-
ness, and Cromarty’) state that, although it has
become extremely rare in Assynt, it is said to be
found in the Forest of Reay; but in answer to an
application we made for an example from that forest
in November 1891, the Duke of Westminster wrote:—
“The genuine Wild Cat is, as you know, a very rare
animal indeed, and I do not know of any in the
Reay country, but will write down and enquire, and
if there is such a thing and it can be got you shall
have it.”

The Wild Cat is not found on any of the islands
of the Outer and Inner Hebrides. The examples
reported from Skye, Mull, Gigha, Canna, &c. are
the offspring of the Crofters’ cats run wild, a very
common occurrence in all parts of the Highlands and
elsewhere.

Messrs. Harvie-Browy and T. E. Buckuey (‘A Fauna
of the Outer Hebrides’), under the heading of Wild
Cat, give the- following observations, proving how
26 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

much care is necessary in taking the reports of keepers
and others as to the existence of the Wild Cat in
the Hebrides; and these remarks apply equally to
the reports of the presence of Wild Cats in many
other districts besides North Britain :—

“Of many entries of ‘ Wild Cats’ in the very com-
plete list of vermin killed between 1876 and 1885
inclusive (furnished by the courtesy of the Chamber-
lain of the Lews, Mr. W. Mackay) not one can be
held as applicable to the true wild species; and we
mention this here in order to set up a guide-post to
others in all future collections of similar statistics.
The said records present a steadily increasing crop of
cats averaging 28-7 (sic) for ten years, there being
30 killed in 1876 and 41 in 1885; now from all the
records of true Wild Cats that we possess (and of
these we have a large number from many parts of
Scotland) such an increase is most unlikely, if not
actually impossible, and besides our own observations,
we have a still higher authority in the late Mr. E.
R., Alston, all pointing to the fact that Felis catus
has not existed in the Outer Hebrides within historic
times.”
NOT FOUND IN IRELAND. 27

THE WILD CAT NOT INDIGENOUS TO IRELAND (?) *.

Tue Wild Cat (f. catus) is not indigenous to Ire-
land, although it is stated by many naturalists who
have written on the subject that it is found in the
mountainous districts of that country. Sir W. Jar-
DINE, for instance, states, in the ‘ Naturalist’s Library,’
vol. ii. Feline, that it abounds in Ireland in similar
situations as in England and Scotland; and BELL, in
both editions (1837 and 1874) of‘ British Quadrupeds,’
says: “The woody mountains of Wales and some
parts of Ireland.” Much later writers have continued
to propagate this error.

The late Mr. Tompson, in his ‘ Natural History of
Ireland,’ says :—‘'The Wild Cat (Felis catus) cannot
with certainty be given as a native animal.” Thomp-
son appears to have thoroughly investigated the
matter, and his opinion is of great importance. He
says the largest Cat he ever saw, which weighed
10 Ib. 9 oz., was shot in a wild state at Shanes Castle ;
this specimen was felis catus in everything but the
form of the tail, which was not bushy at the end, and
the fur, which was finer in texture. In the ‘ Larne
Journal,’ Feb. 1839, it was reported that the Wild
Cat was found in Tullamore Park, and also used to
frequent the shores of Ballintrae ; “ but on question-
ing Mr. Creighton, Lord Roden’s gamekeeper, he
informed me that he had never seen this species in
Treland.” He was able to compare this Cat with two
Wild Cats which had been brought to him in the

* The greater portion of the following remarks and letters on
the Wild Cat in Ireland is taken from a paper read by the author
at a meeting of the Zoological Society, and published in the
‘ Proceedings’ of that Society for 1885.
28 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

flesh by his relative Mr. Langtrey, which had been
killed a few days previous in Aberdeenshire; and
he says it was as strong in every respect as those
animals, but of a lighter grey colour, and he says
the animal appeared to be a genuine hybrid between
Felis catus and the Domestic Cat.

Further investigations since Thompson’s time all
tend to prove the non-existence of this species in the
sister island. The late Sir Victor Brooxe informed
the author that “‘ A well-authenticated instance of the
occurrence of the true Wild Cat in Ireland has
never been recorded. Several specimens of Cats
closely resembling in markings the Wild Cat have
from time to time been produced as veritable ex-
amples, but upon inspection by naturalists they have
invariably proved to be descendants of tame Cats run
wild, perhaps for several generations. These beasts
attain a great size, and very closely assimilate to the
true Wild Cat in their form and coloration.”

Mr. La Tovucuse writes:—‘‘I have just received
your letter. Last Sunday I met one of my Galway
cousins, and he told me that he remembered when
he was a boy the County Grand Jury gave money for
heads of Wild Cats, which were supposed to be most
numerous and destructive, and that he well remem-
bered his father’s keeper (his father was Sir John
Burke, of Marble Hill, county Galway) often getting
this money. J asked him if he ever saw the Cats,
and he says he recollects being shown one or two,
and they were Martens, always called Cats by Irish
keepers.”

Dr. Kennepy writes :—‘‘1 do not believe in the
existence of the true Felis catus, or Wild Cat, as
indigenous in Ireland, although Knox, Maxwell, and
NOT FOUND IN IRELAND. 29

others state that they have seen them; all I know is
that Carte, our highest authority here (curator of the
Dublin Society’s Museum), has been trying for years
to get a specimen of it without success. The ex-
amples alluded to are, I imagine, wild tame Cats such
as you and I have seen prowling after birds and small
vermin in the woods, which do much mischief in this
way; but they are smaller than the Wild Cat and
have not the short bushy tail. Your friend will find
in Thompson’s ‘ Natural History of Ireland’ all that
can be said in favour of the Wild Cat existing in
Treland, but that is not conclusive.”

Sir J. W. WILDE writes :—‘‘I have known a great
number of Cats in my time—gentle, tame, spiteful,
venomous, Vicious, cruel, clean, dirty, honest, stealing,
&c.; but I never saw a Wild Cat, certainly not in
the west of Ireland; all Cats I saw there were evi-
dently tame ones that had got into the rocks and
become wild.”

In another letter he says :—“ Mr. La Touche has
asked me to communicate with you respecting the
existence of the Wild Cat in Ireland. I never met
with such an animal, although, both as a sportsman
and somewhat of a naturalist, I have had ample
opportunities for observation. There is no purely
Irish name for Cat, for the word Catt, or, as it is
pronounced, Catta, is a mere corruption of the
English term. In the ‘ Proceedings’ of the Royal
Trish Academy for 1860 you will find a lengthened
essay of mine upon the unmanufactured animal re-
mains then belonging to that institution ; it contains
much curious information on the ancient animals of
Ireland. That the Domestic Cat has occasionally
strayed from home and gone wild is quite true; and
30 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

instances of the kind occurred in my place in Conne-
mara some years ago, where in a cave by the lake-
side a Cat brought up her young, and, frightened by
the dogs, would never come near the house again.

“The only ancient reference which I can now lay
hands on is that of the ancient Irish poem treated of
in the tract already referred to, where it is said two
Cats were procured from the cave of Ratticrohan, in
county Roscommon, but I see no reason for believing
that they were originally wild. The word used in
the original MSS. is Chait, but it is evidently a cor-
ruption of the English term.”
RECORDS ON THE CONTINENT. 31

RECORDS OF THE WILD CAT ON THE
CONTINENT OF EUROPE.
On the Continent of Europe, where the Wild Cat
was formerly common enough, this animal has now
become extremely rare, and in many districts is quite
extinct.

The cause for this cannot be ascribed so much to
the hand of man as in this country. Owing to the
existence of vast tracts of forests and mountains
there is not the same facility nor the same induce-
ment in the way of game-preserving for its de-
struction, and yet the old genuine species is rapidly
diminishing.

Other causes must be at work. One, no doubt, is
the increased cultivation of the land, and with this
the increase of population in many districts which
but a few years since were barren tracts, almost, if
not entirely, uninhabited. Yet in many of these
districts, where this animal is on the point of
extirpation, the Wolf, the Fox, and most of the
smaller Carnivora are still to be found; some of them,
even, are very numerous.

The increase of population is usually accompanied
by the advent of the Domestic Cat, and it appears
pretty certain that wherever that foreign race pene-
trates the old race diminishes; it is possible that
this circumstance may be one of the chief factors in
its eventual total disappearance, a mixed race, the
result of the interbreeding of the two races, taking
its place.

In France.—When Burron wrote his ‘ Histoire
Naturelle’ in 1755, the Wild Cat was not uncommon,
and Sonnini says that one was killed in the neigh-

 
32 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

bourhood of Paris, and was preserved in the Cabinct
of Natural History.

Dr. Cuenv (‘ Hist. Nat.’ 1855, vol. ii. p. 187) says
that the Wild Cat has become extremely rare in
France during the last sixty years, and is now only
found in some of the great woods in the Partie Méri-
dionale. M. Pav. Gervais, writing in the same year,
states that it is to be found in considerable numbers in
the forests of the different Departments. M. Ernest
Outvier (‘Essai sur la Faune de ]’Allier,’ 1877)
reports that Felis catus is still to be found in some of
the woods and forests of the Department, but in
diminished numbers; and the same author (‘ Faune
du Doubs,’ 1883) says that it is occasionally found
in the forests, but more frequently in the higher
mountains.

I have lately examined two skins labelled Wild
Cats sent from the Department of the Haute-Marne,
near the Vosges; from the form of the skulls and
the absence of many of the characteristic marks of
Felis catus, with the exception of the fur, which is
very thick and close (a necessary result of feral life),
I believe they are the offspring of Domestic Cats
which have run wild.

Iv Beteium.—In the western portion of the slate
plateau of the Lower Rhine, extending over portions
of Belgium, France, and Rhenish Prussia, commonly
known as the Ardennes, in which are large tracts of
oak and beech forests, the Wild Cat, writes M. pr
Setys-Lonecuamps (‘Faune Belge,’ premiére partie,
1842), is not very rare, and is occasionally found in the
woods of Condroz and in the Forest of Soigné ; but it
must not, he sa_s, be confounded with the Domestic
Cat which has taken to the woods.
RECORDS ON THE CONTINENT. 33

In the Oxford Museum there is a specimen of a
Wild Cat shot in the Ardennes by Leopold I., King
of the Belgians, and presented by him in February
1864. It is of alight grey colour, and with much
white about the throat and neck and on the fore legs ;
it is evidently the offspring of Domestic Cats run
wild, probably of the third or fourth generation.

M. ALPHONSE DE LA Fontaine (‘ Faune du Pays de
Luxembourg,’ 1862) mentions the Ardennes as its
habitat, and other localities, as the Canton d’Echter-
nach, the Forest of Grevenmacher, and the rocks of
Manternach.

In Switzertanp.—The Wild Cat is, or was, still to
be found in some of the Cantons. GesNeR, writing
in 1561 (‘ Hist. Anim.’), says that Felis sylvestris is
to be found in considerable numbers amongst the
forests and mountains, and is fond of frequenting
small brakes in proximity to water.

Le Frére OcEriEN (‘ Histoire Nat. du Jura, Zoolog.
viv., 1863) states that the Wild Cat, happily becoming
more rare, inhabits the forests of La Serre, Le Chaux,
and the environs of Clairvaux ; examples having been
killed almost every year.

T. G. Bonney (‘The Alpine Regions of Switzerland
and neighbouring Countries,’ 1868) says that the
Wild Cat still lingers in the most unfrequented parts
of Switzerland, being commonest in the Alps of
Glarus and in the forests of the Canton Bale.

Victor Fatio (‘ Faune des Vertébrés de la Suisse,’
1869) says that the true Wild Cat is not at all
common, but that it exists in the forests in the
centre of Switzerland, in the Cantons of Berne,
Lucerne, Unterwald, Schwyz, and Glarus, also in the

Chain of the Jura from Geneva to Bale. It has not
D
34 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

been seen in the Grisons for many years; and in the
Canton Tessin, where it was formerly plentiful, its
place has been taken by Domestic Cats, which have
become more or less wild.

In Germany.—Professor J. H. Buasrus (‘ Natur-
geschichte der Saugethiere Deutschlands,’ 1857) states
that the Wild Cat is to be found frequently in the
Hartz Mountains, and, perhaps more than anywhere
else, in the totally unpopulated forests of the Central
Carpathians. Nevertheless, he says, it wanders miles
away from such places, which must be considered its
proper home, and roams in the plains below. It is
also found north of the Hartz, in Westphalia, Hanover,
Brunswick, and in West Prussia. It prefers exten-
sive mountain-forests, and particularly pine-forests.

JeitTeves (* Prodr. Faun. Vert. Hung. Super.,’ 1862)
states that the Wild Cat is still found in Upper Hun-
gary, and he has known it breed with the Domestic
Cat. In the forests and mountains of Transylvania
the original species still lingers, but is getting scarcer
every year.

In Itaty.—The Wild Cat is becoming extremely
rare. G. F. Vinuarpi (‘Fauna d’ Italia,’ pt. i., 1871)
says that the Museum at Milan possesses only two
specimens from Italian localities—one from the
mountains above the Lago Maggiore, killed in 1868,
and the other from the Island of Sardinia.

In Spain.—Lord Litrorp writes :—“ In Andalucia,
and, I believe, in other parts of Spain, the Wild Cat
is numerous, and I have obtained several skins from
that country. In my experience in Southern Spain
the Cat is generally found in dense thickets in the
neighbourhood of marshes. The Wild Cat in Spain
is generally known as Gato montés, whilst Felis
RECORDS ON THE CONTINENT. 35

pardina, the Spotted Lynx, is called Gato cerval or
simply Gato, or Gato clavo, but this latter appellation
is also sometimes bestowed upon the Wild Cat.”

Messrs. ABEL CuapMan and W. J. Buck (‘ Wild
Spain, 1893) say that Wild Cats are common
throughout Spain wherever rabbits abound. They
go by the names “ Gato montés,”’ “ Gato castellano ”
or “romano.”

In tHe Caucasus.—The Wild Cat has frequently
been taken as far as the Caspian, and in Western
Russia it is not uncommon.

In Grerce.—It is found in Macedonia and other
parts of the kingdom, and has been killed in the
vicinity of Athens.

Some parts or Asta Mryor.—In the northern
continuation of the Lebanon Range and Eastern
Taurus Range, near Marash, a Cat very closely allied
if not identical with the European Cat has been
met with, very different to that from Trebizond and
Erzeroom. Instead of being of an unusually clear
grey colour marked with distinct spots, it is of a
tawny colour faintly but regularly brindled with a
dark rufous-grey, with a distinct black stripe along
the upper surface of the tail, with imperfect dark
rings and black tip.

In Tursey 1y Evrope (the Balkan Peninsula).—
‘Lord Litrorp writes :—‘‘ In what we used to call
Albania, 7. ¢., the province of Epirus, the mainland
opposite to Corfu, we used frequently to meet with
Wild Cats when we were shooting; and I well re-
member rolling over a very fine old male that came
out of a strip of thorn covert, hotly pursued by our
spaniels, in the valley of Butrinto; this animal’s
stomach was full of the remains of woodcocks.”

D2
36 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

In Scanpinavia.—The Wild Cat is not found,
although naturalists have adopted the name Felis
catus, by which it is generally known, from Linnzus,
a Swedish naturalist; its place is taken by the
Northern Lynx (felis lyncus). Pontoppipan, no
doubt, means this animal when he says :—‘‘ We have
Cats both tame and wild; the latter are very large,
and their skins bear a good price. They live by
catching birds upon the trees; they steal upor them
and then seize them by a sudden leap.”
DESCRIPTION. 37

DESCRIPTION.

ALTHOUGH some of the early writers on Natural
History, as ALBerTUS Maexus, mention the Wild Cat,
it is chiefly in reference to the medicinal effects
of certain parts of the animal on the diseases of
humanity, as in podagra, &c.

The first general description of this animal is in
Gesner’s ‘ Historie Animalium,’ published in 1551,
where he describes one from Switzerland, where it
appears at that time to have been common; he calls
it Felis sylvestris, and states that it is similar to the
Domestic Cat, only larger, with thicker and longer
fur. The body is everywhere of a brown or tawny
(fuscous) or, as Albertus says, grey colour, mixed
with rufous on the back; a black line runs along
the back, and between the breast and neck is a
broad spot mixed with very white hairs. Pads of feet
black. The tail thicker than that of the Domestic
Cat, with two or three blackish rings; the extreme
point quite black.

ALDROVANDUS, KLEIN, and others, give descriptions
similar to Gesner, if they are not taken direct from
his work.

DavsenTon (Buffon’s ‘ Histoire Naturelle, générale
et particuliére, 1756) gives a fuller and very careful
description of this animal, and many subsequent
writers on the Natural History of the Wild Cat of
Europe have taken his observations as the basis of
their remarks.

Tuos. Bett (‘History of British Quadrupeds,’ 1837),
Wituiam Maceruutvray (‘The Naturalist’s Library,’
1838), and Joun Herwricn Brastus (‘ Naturgeschichte
38 THE WILD UAT OF EUROPE.

der Saéugethiere Deutschlands,’ 1857) give very full
general descriptions, especially the latter, who enters
thoroughly into the comparison between the two
races, the Wild and the Domestic.

The following description is from a Wild Cat
killed in the county of Baranya, Hungary, in 1872,
and sent in the flesh to the author by the late
Countess Batuyanr; this district was at that time
very sparsely inhabited :—-

“The head rather flat, long, and comparatively
narrow. ‘The ears pointed, with long whitish-grey
hairs inside ; neck thick and short; body long, rather
lower at the shoulders than at the hips; legs short
and thick, extremely muscular. General colour on
back and sides of a brown-grey on a yellowish-brown
ground; three dark brownish-black stripes, com-
mencing at the root of the nose, pass between the
ears and extend down the upper part of the neck to
the shoulders, one continuing along the centre of the
back to the root of the tail, the other two diverge,
one on each side over the shoulder, and pass to the
fore legs, which are half-ringed on the upper part.
The hind legs are also ringed in the same manner.
Five brown stripes descend on each side of the body,
easily discernible where they break off from the main
stripe down the back, but soon become blended and
mixed, but still perceptible, with the general colour.
Two well-marked stripes extend from the angles of
the eyes along each cheek. Muzzle grey, tinged
with reddish brown; edge of lips dark brown.
The under surface of the lower jaw, neck, and chest
a uniform lightish grey. The abdomen and inner
part of the thighs of a light orange fawn-colour,
mixed with black-brown hairs. The tail covered
DESCRIPTION. 39

with soft thick fur, similar to the body, intermingled
with longer hairs, bushy in appearance and marked
with five dark brown-black annular rings, the three
first undefined, the last two and the tip darker in
colour, almost black; the tip about two inches in
length. ‘The posterior portion of the hind legs, up to
heel-bone, black. The pads of the feet blackish,
with a lighter-coloured rim.”

The colour of the fur of the Wild Cat as given by
different writers varies so much that it would lead
one to suppose no two persons could quite agree in
describing colour. GESNER says “colore fusci vel
grisei”; Dausenton “ plus ou moins mélée de fauve,
de noir et de gris blanchatre”; Brisson “ varié
de brun, de jaundtre et de blanchatre”; Pennant
“yellowish, mixed with grey”; Bewick “ pale yellow,
mixed with grey.” BineLry says the colour varies
somewhat in different parts of Europe, all more or
less striped, never spotted. Tremminck describes
the colour as “gris foncée plus ou moins distincte
suivant l'age;” Cuvier “gris brun, avec les ondes
transverses plus foncées.” MAcGILLIVRAY gives the
colour of the fur of the upper and lateral parts as
pale reddish brown; Donovan as a pale brown,
varied with grey; Buasius a rusty yellowish grey.
Betui describes the general colour as grey, darker
on the back, paler on the sides; Exuior as dark
grey; Bret says a dull grey, sometimes shading to
black-grey in the male, yellow-grey in the female ;
KINGSLEY says usually yellowish grey ; ABEL CHAPMAN
“the general colour of the Wild Cat in Spain is a
brindled grey, with black stripes.”

Mr. Pore has made some interesting observations
on the variation of colour in the Domestic race (see
40 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

‘Zoologist,’ Sept. 1881); he says that the colours,
broadly speaking, are of two distinct patterns, to
which the markings of all coloured Cats can be
referred, for, with the exception of white ones, all
may be said to be tabby—that is, they are marked
with two distinct shades, a light and a dark one,
disposed according to one or two patterns.

Pattern 1, he says, approaches that which is seen
on the fur of the Wild Cat, which he designates as
‘‘ tiger-striped,” to distinguish it from the usual tabby,
but is more like the Serval than the Tiger, the darker
markings on the dorsal line being often split into three;
the lighter of the two tints forms the ground-colour.

Pattern 2. The relation of the two shades to each
other is reversed; the general rule for the greater
part of the fur, ight markings on a darker ground,
disposed, with the exception of those on the face,
legs, and chest, in a manner totally different to No. 1.
This he calls “ring-tabby,” from the invariable pre-
sence of a large ring of the lighter of the two shades,
more or less perfect, situated on the side of the body
a little in front of the flanks.

Both these patterns are often seen on the skins
of tabby Cats which have been labelled Wild Cats.

The external form of the head of Felis catus is
described by PENNANT as larger and flatter than that
of the Domestic Cat ; by Donovan as broad and flat ;
by Macaituivray as short, broad, convex above, and
triangular; by Bettas triangular and strongly marked;
and by other authors as larger and rounder than the
Domestic Cat. The discrepancy can be accounted
for, in some measure, by the variation in the form of
the cranium and the frontal bones.
DESCRIPTION. 41

The form and thickness of the fur and shortness
of the tail have also been held by many as specific
characters.

The terms black and white, often used by the
earlier writers, must not be taken too literally.
Pennant and BeEwick say that the tail of the Wild
Cat is marked with black and white, and others
have employed the same words in their descriptions:
blackish brown and whitish grey would be much
more appropriate terms, the grey becoming more
light and a black-brown becoming more brown as
years increase.

The so-called black rings on the tail of the Wild
Cat are generally of a dark black-brown colour when
held up to the light, whilst the rings on the tail
of a domestic tabby are black.

The tail of the Domestic Cat, as MaccGILLIVRAY
points out, seems longer and more tapering, because
the fur is thinner and shorter; but individuals of
the Domestic race are sometimes met with which
exhibit scarcely any difference from the Wild Cat.
DavBENTON describes a variety of the Domestic Cat -
which has the tips of the tail and the pads‘of the
feet black; one sees, he says, Domestic Cats which
have the black bands on the body and the annular
rings of the same colour on the tail and limbs, but
the fur is less “fauve,” the grey predominating ;
the fur is shorter than in the Wild Cat, and con-
sequently the head, body, and particularly the tail
appear less large.

The measurement of a number of tails of the Wild
Cat and of the Domestic Cat gives a range between
‘11 inches and 143 inches, the longer length being
quite as often found in the Wild Cats as in the
492 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Domestic. The bushy appearance depends entirely
on the length of the fur, and accords with the thick
fur of the rest of the body of the Wild Cat, whilst
in the Domestic race the fur both on the body and
‘tail is thinner and softer *.

* T have lately had the opportunity of examining the skin of
a young Cat known to have been the offspring of two Domestic Cats
which had taken to a wild life; it was shot coming out of a rabbit-
burrow on the Perthshire moors. The tail was very bushy and
looked very short ; the colour of the fur, body, and tail of a yellowish
tabby, with some white marks; the stripes down the back and on
the flanks were visible, but not strongly developed.
SIZE, LENGTH, AND HEIGHT. 43

SIZE, LENGTH, AND HEIGHT OF FELIS CATUS.

THE size of the Wild Cat has been much exagge-
rated, Pennant states that it is three times the size of
the Domestic Cat, “with feet and claws tremendous.”
This would make the Wild Cat somewhat about
seven feet long and three feet high: well may he
call it the British Tiger. Wnrieut, in his edition of
Buffon, says that the Wild or Wood Cat at its full
growth stands a foot and a half high and measures
two feet round the body, and, including the tail,
which is half a yard long, is about four feet in length.
Bewicx records one having been killed in Cumberland
upwards of five feet in length.

Sir W. Jarnpine remarks: ‘‘ We have never been so
fortunate as to find a specimen of such extraordinary
dimensions, nor should we wish to encounter a
Wild Cat so nearly approaching the size of a Puma
or Leopard.”

GESNER gives the whole length as “ quatuor do-
drantum,” or about three feet.

DavUBENTON gives the extreme length of the Wild
Cat as 2 feet S inches 3 lines; the length of the
tail being 11 inches 3 lines—that of the Domestic
being 10 inches 3 lines, or 1 inch shorter than
F. catus; the whole length of the Domestic Cat
is 2 feet 5 inches 6 lines.

TrmMMINCK considers that the size of Wild Cats
varies according to the situation they inhabit: those
of the “Midi” are scarcely larger than the common
Domestic Cat; those inhabiting the vast forests of
the centre of Europe are much larger and stronger,
averaging from 2 feet 8 inches to 3 feet, including
the tai], which is about 12 inches.
44 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

FLEMING gives the length from tip of nose to base
of tail as 2 feet 4 inches, the tail 1 foot 5 inches,
total length 3 feet 9 inches, and the extreme height
15 inches.

JENYNS gives the length of the head and body of
the male as 2 feet 3 inches 9 lines, the length of the
tail 1 foot 1 inch 6 lines, the extreme length 3 feet
5) inches 3 lines, and the extreme length of the female
1 foot 9 inches 3 lines.

MAcGILLIvRAY gives the extreme length of the male,
including the tail, as 3 feet 4 inches, the tail being
14 inches; the extreme length of a female as 2 feet
6 inches, the tail being 10 inches. Another male,
killed in Stirlingshire, the extreme length 2 feet
11 inches, the tail being 124 inches.

Buasius gives the extreme length of the male,
including the tail, as 2 feet 10 inches 6 lines, the tail
being 11 inches 6 lines.

Mr. A. Henrace Cocks gives the extreme length of
the male, including tail, as 3 feet 34 inches; the
female 3 feet 2 inches; a young adult female 2 feet
10 inches, another 2 feet 9 inches.

Bett says that the dimensions of the Wild Cat
differ greatly if we take the statements of various
naturalists. The medium size of a full-grown male
is 1 foot 10 inches, tail 11 inches 2 lines, extreme
length 2 feet 9 inches 2 lines.

A full-grown male from Hungary measured in the
flesh 3 feet. 1 inch, including the tail, which was
12inches. A full-grown male from Scotland measured
in the flesh 2 feet 11 inches, including the tail, which
was 12 inches.

The extreme length of a full-grown well-fed male of
the Domestic race was 2 feet 10 inches, including the
SIZE, LENGTH, AND HEIGHT. 45

tail, which was 11 inches 2 lines ; another example
measured 2 feet 3 inches, including the tail, which
was 124 inches. DavBenron gives the dimensions
of a Domestic Cat as 2 feet 5 inches 6 lines (French
measure).

The height of a large male Wild Cat varies from
123 to 13 inches at the hips and from 12 to 124
inches at the shoulders.

The height of large well-fed male Domestic Cats
varies from 12 to 144 inches.

Some of the Feral Cats which are now occasionally
found in Scotland measure from 13 to 14 inches in
height, and, including the tail, 3 feet 2 inches to
3 feet 4 inches in length—the tail being very bushy
and the rings black.

The weight of a male Wild Cat seldom exceeds
10 pounds; that of large male Domestic Cats run
from 10 to 23 pounds.

The dark colour of the pads was regarded by
‘TEMMINCK as a distinctive character of the male of
Felis catus.

Dr. AtrreD Neurine (‘ Berlin. Gesellschaft natur-
forschender Freunde,’ May 1887), in his remarks on
the colour of the soles of the hind feet of F. catus,
F. caligata, and F. domestica, considers that there is
a permanent difference between the Wild Cat of
Europe and JF caligata and I. maniculata, in the
extent of the black colour of the pads of the toes and
the posterior surface of the foot up to the os calcis
or heel-bone. In JL. caligata and the closely allied
F. maniculata the pads of the toes are quite black, and
this colour extends wholly or in long black stripes
up to the heel-bone; while the true European Wild
Cat, so far as his investigations go, only shows a
46 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

relatively small round spot of black on the pads, and
the colour as far up as the os calcis is of yellowish or
yellow grey; and our Domestic Cats, which retain
the colour of the fur of the wild race, correspond in
the colouring of the soles and feet invariably with
F. caligata and F. maniculata, and not with F. catus,
a circumstance, he says, “which speaks for the
descent of our Domestic Cat from African Cats or
from the closely allied South Asiatic races.”

Fig. 11. Fig. 12.

i Uy) ‘ig
a aie
Ze, er

       

4

Fig. 11.—The right hind leg of a wild-coloured (‘‘ wildfarbigen ”)
Domestic Cat, as is found also in Felis caligata and

F, maniculata.
Fig. 12.—The right hind leg of a European Wild Cat.

In twelve skins, labelled Wild Cats, examined in
the Natural History Department of the British
Museum, S. Kensington, four—viz., one from Greece
and three from Scotland—had black pads to the soles,
a light yellowish-grey fur to the heel; while eight—
viz., two from Sardinia, one from the Caucasus, one
from Hungary, and four from Scotland—had black
toe-pads and dark black-brown fur to the heel-bone.
CRANIUM AND BONES OF SKULL. 47

THE FORM OF CRANIUM AND OTHER BONES
OF THE SKULL.

VaRIATION in the form of the skull of the European
Wild Cat is very perceptible when examining a
number of examples.

In some (1) the skulls are long and narrow; the
cranium is compressed and elongated; the frontal
bones are narrow and depressed, concave in the
centre and flat; the occipital ridge jagged and thick ;
the sagittal (parietal) ridge well marked, extending
sometimes as far as the coronal suture, generally
a little more than halfway. The external bones of

the skull are firmly welded together and dense.
See fig. 13.

The basal length ranges from ...... 85 to 9] mm.
The breadth over the parietal bones 44 to 47 mm.*

In others (2) the skulls are shorter and broader ;
the cranium round and bulging; the frontal bones
broad, convex, or flat; the occipital ridge thin and
less jagged ; the sagittal ridge short or absent; the
bones of the external portion of the skull thinner.
See fig. 14.

The basal length from ............... 78 to 84 mm.
The breadth over the parietal bones 47 to 53 mm.

In seven examples of African Cats labelled /. cali-
gata and F. maniculata the skulls were short and

* The measurements were taken by compass: the basal length
from the insertion of the incisors in the upper jaw to the anterior
edge of the foramen magnum ; the breadth from the posterior inser-
tion of the zygomatic process to the opposite side.
48 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

broad ; the cranium bulging and round; the frontal
bones broad and flat; the sagittal ridge very short.
Basal length from _...... 77 to 81 mm.
Breadth over parietals ... 57 to 58 mm,
In two skulls of 7. maniculata from Suakin the
cranium was rounded and bulging ; the frontal bones
broad and flat ; sagittal ridge very short.

Basal length ............... 81 and 83 mm.
Breadth over parietals ... 48 and 49 mm.

In seven examples of skulls of Domestic Cats from
various sources the form of the cranium was round
and bulging; the frontal bones broad and flat; the
sagittal ridge very short or wanting; the external
bones thin. See fig. 15.

Basal length from _...... 73 to 83 mm.
Breadth over parietals ... 45 to 48 mm.

‘Two examples of the Mummy Cat from Egypt.*
In No. 1 the form of the skull was narrow and elon-
gated; the cranium somewhat bulging; the frontal
bones broad and flat; the sagittal ridge extending
along the parietals halfway to coronal suture and
thick.

Basal length ............... 94 mm.
Breadth over parietals ... 55 mm.

In No. 2 the form of the skull was short and broad ;
frontal bones broad and slightly concave; sagittal
ridge short and thin. See fig. 16.

Basal length ............. 83 mm.
Breadth over parietals ... 46 mm,

 

* Dr. Atrrep Neariye, in his paper on the Egyptian Cats from
Bubastis, Beni Hassan, and Siut (‘Verhandlungen der Berl. anthrop,
Gesellschaft,’ July 20, 1889), considers the larger mummy skulls are
similar to F cal gata, F. chaus, and the smaller to F. maniculata.
50

THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Fig. 138.

 

Skull of Felis catus (Form 1), go. Nat. size.
CRANIUM AND BONES OF SKULL,

 

Skull of Felis catus (Form 2), g. Nat. size.

Lo

ih
o4

THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

 

Skull of Felis domestica, §. Nat. size.
CRANIUM AND BONES OF SKULL.

ASN
WN

 

Skull of a Mummy Cat (Felis maniculata)? Nat. size.

or
CRANIUM AND BONES OF SKULL. 3

 

Skull of a Mongrel Cat, between Pelis catus and Felis dumestica.
Nat. size.
CRANIUM AND BONES OF SKULL. 59

No. 1 appears to be similar to the skull of F. chaus,
and No. 2 to that of J. maniculata and somewhat
like that of F. domestica.

In two examples of well-authenticated hybrids
(more properly mongrels) between the Wild Cat and
the Domestic Cat, the form of the skull was short and
broad ; the cranium round and bulging; the frontal
bones broad and flat; the external bones of the
skull somewhat thin; the sagittal ridge very short.
See Fig. 17.

The basal length ......... 77 mm. in both.
Breadth over parietals... 48 mm.

In the skulls of Pleistocene Cats found in the
caverns of Engis, in the province of Liége, the
basal length ranges from 68 to 77 mm., and the
breadth from 39 to 42 mm. The sagittal ridge
was present in all more or less, ranging from 12 to
23mm. (See figs. 9 and 10.)

‘Tune Nasat Bones.

Buasivs, in his description of the Wild Cat, states
that the nasal bones extend further into the frontal
bones than is the case in the Domestic Cat. ‘This,
however, is not at all persistent, and cannot be taken
as a specific character. Out of ten examples of the
Wild Cat, in six the nasal bones extended into the
frontal bones beyond the insertion of the nasal process
of the upper maxilla, in two they were on the same
level, and in two below; and out of ten examples of
the Domestic Cat, five extended beyond, three were
level, and two below.

Blasius also makes a distinction between the two
races in respect of the frontal bones; in the Wild
60 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Cat he says that they come in contact with the
temporals behind the orbital fosse, whilst in the
Domestic race they are separated by the parietal
process. The examination of ten examples of both
races shows these variations to exist just as often in
one as the other. Exuiot, in his ‘Monograph of
the Felide,’ states: “In some skulls the frontals and
squamosals are in contact, but not always so; these
parts are sometimes separated by the processes of
the parietal and ala sphenoid.”

The variation in the position of the second pre-
molar tooth is another distinction claimed by Buasius
as specific*. He states that in the Wild Cat the
surface of the second premolar of the upper jaw is
in direct line with that of the third or sectorial tooth
(see fig. 18), whilst in the Domestic Cat the anterior

 

external lobe of the sectorial tooth protrudes out-
wards from the second premolar and is not in line

(see fig. 19).
The examination of the teeth of ten skulls of the

* The first premolar of the upper jaw of the permanent teeth
is generally very rudimentary, but occasionally it has two crowns
instead of one. Two instances have come under notice in examining
a number of skulls.
CRANIUM AND BONES OF SKULL. 61

Wild Cat from different parts of Europe gave the
following results :—
In seven the tecth of the upper jaw were in
direct line.
In two the anterior lobe protruded.
In one the teeth were even on one side, pvo-
truding on the other.

In ten skulls of the Domestic Cat :—
In five the teeth of the upper jaw were in direct
line.
In four the anterior lobe protruded.
In one the teeth were even on one side and
protruded on the other.

 

Dr. Neurine, J. ¢., points out another difference
between the Wild and Domestic race, viz., that the
flesh-tooth in the lower jaw of the latter always
appears shorter and more delicately formed than in
the former. ‘This he does not consider specific, but
is the result of domestication.
62 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

VARIATIONS IN THE SKELETON.

THE caudal vertebre vary from 19 to 23, both in
the Wild and the Domestic race. The length of
the tail has been regarded by many writers as a
specific character between the two, the Wild Cat
having a shorter tail; but the number of vertebree
is generally found to vary equally in both races.

The examination of the skeletons of Felis catus and
Felis domestica does not coincide with the general
opinion that the Wild is a much larger animal
than the Domestic Cat. The measurements give
some slight difference in the height, but this is
not always in favour of the wild race. The verte-
bral column is the same. ‘The pelvis shows a slight
variation in length—89°5 mm. in Felis catus, 88 mm.
in Felis domestica. ‘There is some variation in the
bones of the extremities; but this, again, is often
in favour of the Domestic race; but the strength and
thickness of these bones are always greater in the
Wild Cat.

The following measurements are taken from the
skeleton of a full-grown male Felis catus from
Hungary and a full-grown well-fed male of Felis
domestica (see figs. 20 to 81) :—

Wild Cat, Domestic Cat.

mm, mm
Humerus ...... 110 Humerus ...... 115
Was escev ete 122 Ui aiidee asin ons 127
Radius......... 98 Radius ...... 109
Femur ......... 120 Femur ......... 125
Tibia..... ...... 128 Tibia ......... 134
Fibula ......... 116 Fibula ......... 125
BONES OF THE EXTREMITIES. 63

 

Humerus of Felis catus. Humerus of Domestic Cat.
Nat. size. Nat. size.
THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

64

 

Ulna of Domestic Cat.

Ulna of Felts catus.

Nat. size.

Nat. size.
BONES OF THE EXTREMITIES,

 

 

 

Radius of Felis catus. Radius of Domestic Cat.
Nat. size. Nat. size.

65
66

THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

 

 

 

Femur of Felis catus. Femur of Domestic Cat.
Nat. size. Nat. size.
BONES OF THE EXTREMITIES,

 

 

 

Tibia of Felis catus. Tibia of Domestic Cat.
Nat. size. Nat. size.

F2

 

67
68 THE WILD

 

 

 

 

Fibula of Felis catus.

Nat. size.

CAT OF EUROPE.

 

 

 

Fibula of Domestic Cat.
Nat: size.
BONES OF THE EXTREMITIES. 69

Dr. ALFRED NeuRina, of Berlin, sends the measure-
ments of the bones of the extremities of a Wild
Cat (in his possession): the humerus measured
121 mm., the radius 118 mm., the ulna 137 mm.,
the femur 137 mm., the tibia 139 mm. ‘The skull
and other bones were wanting.
70 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

LENGTH OF THE INTESTINAL CANAL.

Davsenton, in 1756, first noticed the difference in
the length of the intestinal canal between the Wild
and the Domestic Cat. He found that the length of
the small intestine from the pylorus to the caecum in
the Wild Cat was 3 feet 2 inches, while that of the
Domestic was 5 feet 9 inches (Fr.). The total length
of both large and small intestines in the Wild Cat
was 4 feet 1 inch, in the Domestic 6 feet 9 inches.

Professor Mivarr states that the whole intestinal
canal in the Domestic Cat is about five times the
length of the whole body, though it is considerably
shorter in the Wild Cat.

Mr. Harrison Wuir (‘Our Cats and all about them’)
states that the intestines of the Domestic Cat are nine
times the length of its body, whilst in the Wild Cat
they were little more than three times the length.

The difference in the length is chiefly found to be
in the small intestine, the length of the colon and
rectum being nearly the same in both races.

Istpore GeorF. St.-HiLarre, in his ‘ Histoire Nat.
gén. des Régnes Organiques,’ t. ili. (1854-62), has
the following remarks on Daubenton’s discovery :—

“Tl est vrai que Daubenton a comparé les races
félines au chat sauvage d’Europe, et non a J’espéce
qui en est la souche principale, le Chat ganté.
Mais le groupe des chats proprement dits est telle-
ment naturel qu'une de ses espéces, quelle qu'elle
soit, peut représenter anatomiquement toutes les
autres. Il est néanmoins a désirer que les voyageurs
en Abyssinie et en Nubie ne négligent pas l’occasion
d’examiner, ou de nous mettre 4 méme d’examiner, le
tube digestif chez le Felis maniculata, a fin de changer
LENGTH OF THE INTESTINAL CANAL. 71

en une verité d’observation ce qui n’est encore qu’une
présomption extrémement vraisemblable.”

St.-Hilaire’s suggestion appears never to have been
acted upon. There is no record, so far as I am aware,
of any measurement having been made of the intes-
tines of the African Cats, wild or domestic. With
the hope of being able to settle this question, at
the suggestion of Dr. P. L. Sclater, Mr. J. C. Mitchell,
Professor of Zoology in the College of Agriculture
at Gizeh, near Cairo, was applied to, and he has most
kindly sent the following measurements of the intes-
tinal canal of Felis chaus and the Egyptian Domestic
Cat; he was not able to procure an example of the Felis
maniculata in the flesh*. The Egyptian Domestic
Cat has been much crossed with imported Domestic
Cats of different kinds, but that which he examined
he considered to be one of the pure breed.

1. Felis chaus 8.

 

centim, ft. in. lin,
Length of small intestine . . 1275 = 4 2 O
3 large intestine . . 3840 = 1 1 38
1615 5 3 8
The entire length of the body
including the tail. . . . 1080 = 3 4 5
2. Felis chaus 9}.
Length of small intestine. . 1835 = 4 4 6
6 large intestine. . 853 = 1 2 O

1683 = 5 6 6
Length of body including the
tal 4. ee Wine ak, a Oe ee

 

* F chaus, F. caligata, and F. caffra are considered by some
authors to be synonymous.
72 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

3. Felis domestica (Egyptian var.) 3.

centim. ft. in. lin.
Length of small intestine. . 1610 =5 38 7
5 large intestine . . 27-4 = 010 10

188°4 6 2 5
Length of body including the
AUS, Gace: ar Bee Mie. 0 2 3 6

The entire length of the intestinal canal of four examples
of the European Wild Cat from different districts measured :
5 feet; 4 feet 6 inches; 4 feet 1 inch; and 8 feet 2 inches.

The entire length of the intestinal canal of two examples
of the European Domestic Cat measured 6 feet 5 inches and
6 feet 7 inches.

In Felis chaus the length of the intestinal canal is
much shorter than in the Egyptian Domestic Cat,
and is somewhat longer than in Felis catus.

In the Egyptian Domestic Cat the length approxi-
mates to that of the intestinal canal of the Domestic
Cat of Europe.

The length of the large intestine (colon) in the
Egyptian Wild Cat (Lelis chaus) is longer than in
the Egyptian Domestic Cat, whilst in the European
Cats it is the reverse.

DavBenton did not consider that this change had
been produced solely by the abundance or quality of
the food, but attributed it to other circumstances
which the Cat finds in a state of domestication, and
regarded it as “une altération de l’espéce qui a plus
dégénéré dans les parties intérieures du Chat domes-
tique que dans la figure extérieure du corps.”

Darwin (‘Animals and Plants under Domestication,’
vol. ii. p. 293) considers the increased length of the
intestines in the Domestic Cat is due to the food
being less strictly carnivorous than in any wild feline
 

THE CAFFER CAT.
(Felis caffra?, F. chaus?, F. caligata ?)
LENGTH OF THE INTESTINAL CANAL, 73

species; ‘‘for instance,” he says, ‘“‘I have seen a
French kitten eating vegetables as readily as meat.”
The author had a fine Tabby Cat which for nearly
five years lived almost entirely on vegetable diet, and
died from a block in the intestines of a mass of food
composed principally of potatoes and potato-rind, to
which it was very partial; and on measuring the
intestinal canal of this Cat, the small intestine was
3 inches longer than the usual dimensions found in
the Domestic race. The examination of the intestinal
canal of the offspring of Domestic Cats which have
taken to a wild life, and which have become entirely
feral, shows that it approximates closely to that of
the Wild race.
74 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

PERJOD OF GESTATION.

ANOTHER supposed specific difference between the
two races has been the length of the Period of Gesta-
tion. The Wild Cat is stated to go with young from
67 to 68 days; the Domestic Cat from 55 to 63
days.

Mr. Heneace Cocks procured two Wild Cats, male
and female, from Guisachan, Ross-shire, which he
kept in captivity for some four or five years. These
bred every year for four successive years. “My
old pair of Wild Cats,” he writes, “ have bred again
this year (1876), and the gestation was to within
an hour or two of the same time as before, 7. ¢., 10
hours less than 68 days ; is it jumping at conclusions
in too great a hurry to suppose that this is the regular
time ¢”

Heneage Cocks also noticed that the kittens of
the Wild Cats at birth were considerably larger than
those of the Domestic Cat at the same period.

There is no other record, so far as I know, of
Wild Cats breeding in confinement in this country ;
and there is no record of Wild Cats breeding in a
state of nature which can be entirely depended upon.

Owing to their nocturnal habits and wandering
propensities the precise period our Domestic Cats
go with young is not easily ascertained. Most
naturalists who have written on the subject give
the time as 55 or 56 days. FLemine and Donovan,
however, state the period of gestation is 63 days.
Recent inquiries amongst breeders of Cats have not
resulted in clearing up the discrepancy, and they give
the margin from 65 to 63 days.
PERIOD OF GESTATION. 75

It is very difficult to prove the exact date of actual
fecundation. The heat-period of the female extends
to 9-10 days; on any one of those days or nights the
act of fecundation may take place, and thus the date
of birth would be either shortened or lengthened.

ERXLEBEN (‘Systema Regni Animalis,’ 1777) con-
siders that the difference is caused by the want of
knowledge as to when the act of fecundation takes
place.

Domestication may also produce a modification ;
it certainly tends to increased fertility. HERBERT
Spencer (‘Principles of Biology,’ vol.ii. pp. 457 et seq.),
on the laws of multiplication, nutrition, and genesis,
says :—“ The best illustrations are those yielded by
animals in which we have, besides an increased
supply of nutriment, a diminished expenditure. Two
classes of comparisons alike in these implications
may be made—comparisons between tame and wild
animals of the same species or genus, and comparisons
between tame animals of the same species differently
treated.”

‘Equally clear proof,” he writes, ‘that abundant
nutriment raises the rate of multiplication occurs in
mammals; compare the litter of a dog (6-14) with
the wolf and fox (5-6). Again, the Wild Cat has
4 or 5 kittens, while the Tame Cat has 5 or 6 three
times a year, no less distinct evidence that among
domesticated mammals themselves the well-fed indi-
viduals are more prolific than the ill-fed individuals.”

Burron states that the Wild Cat, and also the
Domestic Cat run wild, only produce their young
once a year, whilst the Domestic Cat breeds several
times during the same period.

Be.uinGeRI, C. F. (‘ Della fecondita degli Animali
76 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Vertebrati’) states that the Wild Cat breeds only
once a year, and has 4 or 5 in alitter; he also remarked
that in Cats which live exclusively on animal food
the proportion of female kittens in 69 cases recorded
was as 37 to 32.

Confinement in cages of wild animals may produce
a modification of their natural habits, and may
lengthen or shorten the gestation period.

Mr. Barttett, the able Superintendent of the Zoo-
logical Gardens, states that ‘‘ the period of gestation
in the Lion, the Tiger, the Leopard, and the Ocelot
extends to 16 weeks, or 112 days;” but this appears
to be uncertain ; at the last accouchement of a lioness,
in 1893, the period was shortened some five or six
days, although every precaution appears to have been
taken in separating the male, and counting the days
from that separation.

In the Domestic Cat the gestation period has been
possibly shortened from the increasing powers of
fertility, from abundance of food, &c., as stated by
Herbert Spencer; and this would appear to be only
the case whilst in a state of domesticity, if what
Buffon states be true, that the same animal run wild
will only produce its young once a year, instead
of three or four times; and it may reasonably be
supposed that the gestation period has been lengthened
and accords with that of the Wild Cat. M. Roviin
remarks that “a restoration of domestic animals to
the wild state causes a return towards the original
characters of that wild state.”
Zz AN
ee WN
- \

|

   

Za ——y, mass
SS NN
= = y AN y
Se a= AD
pe eae H yy} i H
Bane
oh

bees Ht VX) i
HM

THE FETTERED CAT.

(Felis maniculata.)
RELATIONSHIP WITH FELIS DOMESTICA. 77

THE RELATIONSHIP OF FELIS CATUS
WITH FELIS DOMESTICA.

Many of the earlier writers on the Wild Cat, as
Buffon, Pennant, Bingley, Cuvier, Church, Shaw,
Donovan, Stark, and Owen, consider that Felis catus
is the ancestor of the Domestic Cat of Europe; on the
other hand, Temminck, Cretzschmar, Sir W. Jardine,
Isidore Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, and others consider that
the Egyptian Cat described by Riippell (Felis manicu-
lata *) is the original founder of our Domestic race ;
whilst Pallas, Blyth, and others believe that the
Domestic Cat is the descendant of several species
commingled together.

Burron (‘ Histoire Naturelle,’ vol. vi. 1756) says :—
‘“‘Le Chat sauvage représente la race originaire des
Chats domestiques; ils lui ressemblent tous par-
faitement par les principaux caractéres de la figure
extérieure et de la conformation intérieure, et ils n’en
différent que par des variétés ou des caractéres qui ne
sont ni essentiels ni par conséquent propres 4 con-
stituer une autre espéce.” Pennant (‘History of
Quadrupeds,’ 1781) says:—‘‘ This animal (the Wild
Cat) does not differ specifically from the Tame Cat,
the latter being originally of the same kind but
altered in colour and in some other trifling accidents
as are common to animals reclaimed from the woods
and domesticated.”

* Some confusion appears to exist as to the different scientific
names of the Egyptian Cats. Gray in Cat. Brit. Mus. gives Felis
caligata as the Egyptian Cat. Temminck gives [lis maniculata or
Felis ganté as the Gloved Cat, and Felis caffra as the Caffor Cat.
Felis maniculata is considered to be the same as Riippell’s Cat.
73: THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Cuvier (‘Le Régne Animal,’ vol. i. p. 165, 1829)
writes :—‘‘ Le Chat ordinaire est originaire de nos
foréts d'Europe. En domesticité, il varie, comme
chacun sait, en couleur, en longueur et en finesse
de poil, mais infiniment moins que le chien.”

Sir Ricnarp Owen (‘ British Fossil Mammals ’)
founded his opinion that our household Cat was
probably a domesticated variety of the same species
which was contemporary with the Spelean Bear,
Hyeena, and Tiger on De Blainville’s statement that
the first inferior milk-molar tooth of the 2. manicu-
lata (Riippell’s Cat) has a thick crown and three
roots, while the corresponding tooth in our Domestic
Cat and the Wild Cat of Europe has a thinner crown
and only two roots.

The following is the original text from M. pe
BLAINVILLE’s ‘ Ostéographie des Mammiferes,’ vol. ii.
p. 65, Felis, c. 1848-50:—“Je dois toutefois faire
observer que dans le F. maniculata, la premiére
molaire inférieure de lait est pourvue, sans doute a
cause de son épaisseur, d’une troisiéme racine interne
médiane qui n’existe pas dans la dent correspondante
du Chat d'Europe, sauvage et domestique, ce qui
confirme la distinction de ces deux espéces, et par
conséquent démontre que notre Chat domestique n’a
pas pour souche sauvage le Chat d’Egypte, comme
l'a pensé M. Temminck” *.

* Professor Mivart writes :—“ TI found, when working at my
monograph on the Canide, so many individual differences in molar
teeth that I came to the conclusion that small dental differences
formed a very unsatisfactory support for specific distinction. I have
had several skulls of Monkeys in my collection with singular though
slight differences of dentition.”
RELATIONSHIP WITH FELIS DOMESTICA. 79.

Istpore Gerorrroy St.-HiLairz, however, in his
‘ Histoire Naturelle générale des Régnes Organiques,’
1862, states that De Blainville, after a careful exami-
nation of a skull from an ancient Egyptian Cat and
also of recent skulls of Felis maniculata, agrees
with him that Riippell’s Cat is the original of our
Domestic Cat.

‘Ce Chat,” says Isidore Geoffroy St.-Flilaire, “a été
découvert a l'état sauvage en Nubie par M. Riippell;
on la depuis retrouvé en Abyssinie, ot il est a la
fois sauvage et domestique. Temminck et le savant
collaborateur de M. Riippell, M. Cretzschmar, l’ont
décrit presque simultanément sous le nom de Chat
ganté (felis maniculata) en le signalant comme
Vespéce primordiale ou le type de nos races do-
mestiques. Cette détermination a été admise et
confirmée en France, par Blainville, aprés l'examen
comparatif d’un crane antique rapporté d’Egypte par
Geoffroy St.-Hilaire et de plusieurs cranes récents des
Chats ganté, sauvage et domestique.”

Sir W. Jarpive (‘The Nat. Library,’ vol. ii. 1834)
believes with Rtippell and others that the Felis
maniculata is the origin of our Domestic Cat; he
says :—‘ Although our opinion coincides with that of
the above-mentioned authorities, and we think that
we are indebted to the superstition of the ancieut
Egyptians for having domesticated the species de-
scribed by Riippell; we have no doubt since its
introduction to this country, and more particularly
to the north of Scotland, there has been occasional
crossing with our own native species.”

Dr. AtrreD Nenrine (‘ Verhandlungen der Berliner
anthropologischen Gesellschaft,’ July 1889) forms the
opinion that the Domestic Cat has two progenitors,
80 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

one from the south-east of Asia and the other from
the north-east of Africa—viz., the Chinese Cat * and
the African Cat—and that the present Domestic
Cat of Europe derives its origin principally from
Africa, and has been in several places, especially in
Germany, much crossed with the European Wild
Cat. He considers that the taming or domestication
of the smaller varieties of the Cat tribe took place
principally with those people who led stationary or
non-nomadic lives and who occupied themselves in
agriculture in its various branches, as it was of vital
necessity that their stores of grain &c. should be
protected from the attacks of the voracious rodents,
and experience taught them that for this the smaller
Cats were extremely suitable.

The late Professor RoLLeston, in a paper on
Domestic Cats, ancient and modern, in the ‘ Journal
of Anatomy and Physiology,’ vol. ii. 1868, considered
that the Domestic Cat was not known to the Greeks
and Romans in classical times, and that the White-
breasted Marten (Martes foina), which is known
also as the Beech- or Stone-Marten, was functionally
the “Cat” of the ancients; and further on in his
paper he states: “Though there is no reason for
supposing that the Felis domesticus was domesticated
in any other country than Egypt before the Christian
era, there are many reasons for demurring to the

* Dr. Newxine considers that it is probable the Domestic Chinese
Cat had its origin in the native Wild Cats; probably, he says, in
relatively carly times they succeeded in domesticating one of the
indigenous Wild Cats. “TI certainly,” he says, “cannot prove this
theory, but, looking at the state of civilization in which the Chinese
have lived for so many thousand years, I hold it as very probable that
they have possessed Domestic Cats for a very long series of years.”
RELATIONSHIP WITH FELIS DOMESTICA. 81

statement ordinarily made to the effect that this
animal was first spread throughout Europe at the
end of the period of the Crusades”; and further,
he says, “The upshot of this paper, then, is to
show that in classical times the word ye\n was
used by the Greeks to denote the Mustela martes
and the Ferret, but not the Polecat probably, though
probably the Genet; and that in later times, but not
till later times, this word was used also for the Felis
domesticus ” *.

ALDROVANDUS, in his description of the Wild Cat,
says :—‘‘ Felis appears to have the same meaning as
Fouinus in the works of Columella and Varro. These
eminent men make no distinction of species between
the Cat and the Weasel; their mistake has arisen
from two causes—that both Cats and Weasels lie in
wait for mice, and that the word ya\y in the Greek
text of Aristotle is sometimes rendered Weasel and
sometimes Cat by translators ; but we ought to follow
Pliny, who translates the yady of Aristotle ‘ weasel,’
and aidovpoe Felts or ‘cat.’ This remark of Pliny’s
is found in his Hist. Nat. lib. i. c. 4, §16; he says
there are two kinds of Weasels: one living in woods,
of different sizes, called by the Greeks txric, its gall
is said to be a good remedy for wasp-bites, in other
respects a poison; the other, which roams about
our houses and carries its young daily from place to
place, changes its abode and attacks serpents.”

From reliable sources, it would appear that the

* There can be no doubt that animals of the family Mustelide and
of the Viverride were used by the Greeks and Romans for the
purpose of keeping thcir houses clear of vermin; but thre also
can be no doubt that the Domestic Cat had heen introduced into
Europe very much earlier than has been gencrally supposed.

G
§2 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Egyptian Cat was introduced into Europe as a
domestic animal some 300-400 years before the
Christian era, although it was not domesticated by
the Romans till much later *.

In the ancient city of Tarentum there are certain
representations which prove that these early Greek
colonists in Italy possessed the Domestic Cat.

Francois LE NorMant in his work, ‘La Grande
Gréce,’ vol. i. p. 97 et seg., states that on one of the
coins of that city, of the finest period (500 and 400
B.c.), there is the figure of the well-known Taras riding
on a dolphin, and on the reverse is the figure of a
young man sitting and holding a bird in his right
hand, which a cat standing erect against his leg is
endeavouring to seize. On one of the ancient
‘Tarentine vases is a representation of a young girl
caressing a cat, and on another is a girl amusing
herself by holding a mirror to a cat which she carries
in her arms.

Mrs. Janet Ross (‘The Land of Manfred,’ 1889)

* Sir Jony Lunnocx, “On the Ancient Lake Habitations of
Switzerland,’’ Nat. Hist. Review, 1862, states that the bones of Cats
have been found amongst the debris deposits in the mud of Lakes
Mooseedorf, Wanwy!] (Mauensee), and Robenhausen (Pfaffikonsee).
These bones are said to be those of the Wild Cat (Felis catus ferus),
on the authority of M. Riitimeyer, who, Sir John states, can from
the texture and condition of the bones in many cases distinguish
the species and even determine whether the bone belongs to a wild
or domesticated animal. But it is possible that these bones may
be those of a domesticated imported Cat, as, with these animal
remains, hatchets have been found made of nephrite, a substance
which must have come from Egypt or Asia; the discovery also, in
the debris, of the six-rowed barley (Hordeum heaastichon), which,
according to De Candolle, was the species generally cultivated by
the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, proves that there
must. have been communication with those nations and the lake-
dwellers of Switzerland.
RELATIONSHIP WITH FELIS DOMESTICA. 83

remarks that the Tarentines have one great claim on
our gratitude—they first imported the Domestic Cat,
which they no doubt received in their constant inter-
course with the East.

Le Normant remarks that the Greek writers mention
the Ailuros (literally a beast carrying its tail like a
plume) as a wild animal to be destroyed for the sake
of itsskin ; but the Cat was only known as a domestic
pet in Egypt, where it was seen by Herodotus,
who mentions the strange custom of the inhabitants
shaving off their eyebrows as a sign of mourning
when the house cat died.

The Romans, although they must have known of
this Cat early in the first century, do not appear to
have adopted it as a domestic animal till about the
fourth century a.D.; but, as stated above, it appears
to have spread over Italy long previous to that date,
as representations of this animal are to be found in
many of the old tombs in Etruria.

At Cervetri (the ancient Agylla), in Etruria, there
are many architectural and sculptured tombs ; in one
of these, which was opened in 1850, called Grotta dei
Rilievi, discovered by the late Marchese Campana,
there is at the bottom of one of the lower pillars
a sculptured figure of an unmistakable Egyptian Cat
playing with a mouse. At Corneto (the ancient
Tarquinii), in the Grotta del Triclinio, a banqueting-
scene is represented: “In front of each couch is an
elcgint trapeza or four-legged table bearing dishes
full of refreshments and beneath which is the repre-
sentation of a cock, a partridge, and a cat; in another
tomb a cat is represented climbing up a tree” *.

* Dennis, ‘Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, 3rd ed. p. 319.
Murray's ‘ Handbook for Rome,’ 1875, p. 494.
G2
84 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

In another, the Letto funebre, is a tomb on the vault
of which is painted a cat with a pigeon over its head.
These tombs date from 350 to 200 B.c.

A correspondent from Rome writes:—‘I should
think there was no doubt whatever that the Etruscans
received the Domestic Cat from the Egyptians by
means of the Pheenician traders, as in the very earliest
and rudest Etruscan tombs in the neighbourhood
of Civeta Castellani (the contents of which are
now in the museum of Papa Guilio, near Rome)
there are unmistakable traces of the Phcenician
trade.”

The same correspondent writes :—‘‘ There is a very
curious and unique bas-relief in the Capitoline
Museum of a lady piping to her cat, which is standing
on its hind legs, while just beyond its reach two dead
ducks or geese hang on a branch of a tree.”

In the Museum of Naples, a correspondent writes,
are two mosaics from Pompeii: “ one a kitten killing
a chicken or pigeon, very like our Domestic Cat of
the 19th century, it is nicely marked grey; another
is quite a differently drawn creature, much more
angular, of a yellow colour with brownish markings :
the difference in form may be that the kitten was
drawn by a more able artist.”

The Rev. W. Houauton, who has paid much atten-
tion to the natural history of the ancients, is of opinion
that the Domestic Egyptian Cat was introduced into
Italy through the Tyrrhine trade with Egypt, and that
the early inhabitants of Etruria were acquainted with
the ‘ mouse-killing cat.”

The earliest written record of the introduction of
the Domestic Cat into Britain is somewhere about
936 a.D., when Hoel Da, Prince of South Wales,
RELATIONSHIP WITH FELIS DOMESTICA. 85

enacted severe penalties for the killing of a ‘ Mousing
Cat,” as the race was then called.

‘The Romans were probably the original introducers
of this Cat, and as the final evacuation of Britain by
that nation took place under the Emperor Valen-
tinian, c. 486 a.p., the period of its introduction may
certainly be dxted some 500 years previous to the
Welsh chronicle, and probably even much earlier.
At Silchester, the old Roman city of Calleva, destroyed
by the South Saxons in 495, osseous remains of
Cats have been found, which, from the size and
form of the skull, are probably of the Domestic race.
In Wriaut’s ‘The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon,’
p- 339, is an account of a Roman villa at Dursley,
near Gloucester, in the debris, mixed with the bones
of horse, wild boar, rabbit, mice, goats, pigs, and
sheep, are also the bones of cats, which, from the
surroundings, were in all probability those of the
Domestic race. In a kiln, in a Roman villa found
near Great Chesterton, the jaw-bones and other
osseous remains of a cat have been discovered, which
appear to be those of the Domestic race. The Cat
was certainly domesticated in Italy long before the
Christian era, and from its known propensities to
wander, especially during the night in the “ season”
period, it would come in contact with the Wild Cat,
which was indigenous all over Europe, and the result
would be a mixture of the two races.
86 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

INTERBREEDING OF THE TWO RACES.

Darwin and all the later writers bear testimony to
the various races of Wild and Domestic Cats inter-
breeding with each other, and that this has not
interfered with their fertility, which has remained
unimpaired in their offspring.

Although it has been long known that the
Wild Cat has bred with the Domestic Cat, this was
strenuously denied by some writers, who believed
that the two were distinct species, and not varieties,
and that if by chance they did breed together, the
offspring were hybrids and non-fertile.

Professor Huxtey defines [/ybrids as crosses between
two species, the offspring being, as a rule, non-fertile ;
Mongrels as crosses between two races, the offspring
being fertile.

Professor Mivart, in his work on the Cat, c. xii.
p- 391, asks the question, ‘‘ What is the difference
between a species and a variety?” ‘ Now the various
breeds of Cats,” he says, ‘‘ such as are enumerated in
the first chapter, are called ‘ varieties, while a lion
and a tiger are not called two ‘varieties, but two
‘species. The term species may have two mean-
ings—one morphological, the other physiological.
According to the first of these, it signifies a group
of animals which are alike in appearance. If two
groups of animals differ markedly in appearance, and
if no transitional forms are known which bridge over,
as it were, the difference thus existing between them,
then such two groups are reckoned as two distinct
species according to the first or morphological signi-
fication of that term, ¢.¢. they are morphological
species. ‘The second use of the word ‘species’ is to
     
      
    
    

 

i
a ar oo
ai, == = ‘ eee =

  

THE WILD CAT. (The Mixed Breed.)
(Felis catus ferus.)
INTERBREEDING OF THE TWO RACES. 87

denote a group of animals which can breed freely
amongst. themselves, but which, if united with animals
of another appearance, will not produce fertile cross-
breeds with them; that is to say, they will not pro-
duce young which can go on indefinitely producing
amongst themselves a race of cross-breeds as freely
as either set of parent animals would have gone on
reproducing forms like themselves. Creatures which
are in this way restricted are physiological species.”
And in his ‘Genesis of Species,’ p. 2, he says:—
“The word species denotes a peculiar congeries of
characters, innate powers and qualities, and a certain
nature realized indeed in individuals, but having no
separate existence, except ideally, as a thought in
some mind.”

Darwin (‘ On the Origin of Species,’ p. 52) says :—
“T look at the term species as one arbitrarily given
for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals,
closely resembling each other, and that it does not
essentially differ from the term variety, which is
given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms.
‘The term variety, again, in comparison to mere indi-
vidual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, and for
mere convenience’ sake.”

Darwin (‘Animals and Plants under Domesti-
cation,’ vol. i. p. 46 e¢ seg.) gives numerous instances
of Wild Cats of this and other countries interbreed-
ing with the Domestic Cat.

Sir W. Jarvine (‘ The Naturalist’s Library,’ vol. ii.)
says :—‘‘ We have no doubt that since its introduc-
tion to this country (that is, the Domestic Cat), and
more particularly to the north of Scotland, there has
been occasional crossing with our own native species,
and that the result of these crosses has been kept
88 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

in our houses: we have seen many Cats closely
resembling the Wild Cat, and one or two that were
very tame, which could scarcely be distinguished
from it.”

D. G. Extiot (‘ Monograph of the Felidi ’) says that
the Domestic Cat crosses readily with any or all of
the wild species with which they come in contact,
and the hybrids are fertile, and these are always met
with in countries where Wild and Domestic Cats are
found.

The late Jonny Epwarp Gray (‘ Cat. Carn. Mamm.
in British Museum,’ 1869), writing on Felis catus,
remarks that it is said to breed with the Domestic
Cat, and that the skull of the hybrid, as well as the
coloration of the fur, is more or less modified by
interbreeding.

Harrison Werr (‘Our Cats,’ 1889) states that
in 1871 and 1872 a Wild Cat, aged three years, was
exhibited at the Crystal Palace Cat Show by the Earl
of Hopetoun, also some hybrid kittens, the father of
which was a long-haired cat, the mother a sandy by
a wild cat out of a Icng-haired tabby, which proves,
if proof were wanting, that such hybrids breed freely
either with hybrids, or with the Domestic or the Wild
Cat.

Epwarp Donovan (‘Natural History of British
Quadrupeds’) states that these animals (Wild Cats)
will always associate with the Domestic Cats when
the latter stray into the woods in quest of mates, and
produce young, which is an obvious proof that they
are both from the same parent stock.

Isiporé Georrroy St.-HILAIRE (Hist. Nat. gén.
tom. iii. p. 177 et seg.) states that he was informed
by M. Gyon, surgeon to the army of Algiers, that
INTERBREEDING OF THE TWO RACES. 89

the Domestic Cat had bred with the Wild Cat of that
country, and he remarks that in these mixed unions
the female was, as a rule, from the Domestic variety :—
‘Nous n’avons pas chez les mammiféres d’exemples
authentiques de croisement fécond entre deux animaux
sauvages 4 l’état de liberté, mais nous en connaissons
plusieurs entre un animal devenu momentanément
libre et un animal sauvage, comme entre le chien et
le loup, le chien et le chacal, le chat et plusieurs de
ses congénéres, le cochon et le sanglier,” &c.

E. Layarp (‘ Cat. of the S. African Museum,’ 1862)
says that the Domestic Cat in South Africa breeds
freely with the Wild Cat of that district (Felis
caffra), and he informed Mr. Darwin that a pair of
these hybrids (?) have become perfectly tame and
much attached to the lady who brought them up, and
Mr. Fry has found that these hybrids are fertile.

In India the various wild species have bred freely
with the Domestic variety.

Brian Hopeson (‘ Journal of the Asiatic Society ’)
says :—‘ The Domestic Cat is as common in Nepal as
elsewhere, and has no peculiarity worthy of note:
judging from its marks, I should conjecture that it is
derived from I’, nipalensis ; if so, it has lost in domesti-
cation the fine ground-colour of that beautiful species.”

Water Exuiot (J. As. Soc. xvi. p. 247) also
states that Felis chaus interbreeds with the Domestic
Cat, and the offspring of these has the thick tail and
the brown bar inside the forearm characteristic of
F. chaus; he has often noticed the same marking
in the Domestic Cats of India. BLytH states that the
Domestic Cat of the Afghans is very similar to that
of the Himalayan districts, running into all sorts
of varieties as to colour as they do with us, although
90 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

the most general is a dark grey with black spots and
stripes; he also says that the Domestic Cats of India
are smaller than those of Europe, but are very com-
monly of a grey colour without markings, except on
the limbs and some more or less confluent black
dorsal lines, the feet and tail being also black to a
greater or less extent. This is a style of colouring
never seen in those of Europe (of unmixed breed),
and the true tabby common in Europe (meaning the
tabby with black ground and broad pale streaks
peculiarly disposed) is never seen in India; the grey
with black tiger streaks is found in both regions,
only that the Indian are of a purer grey than the
European; wholly black cats are less common than in
England. ELPHINsToNE states that the Cats of the
long-haired variety called Borauk are exported in
great numbers from Afghanistan, but are not nume-
rous in Persia, where they are seldom or never
exported. BuiytH, on the authority of Dr. D. Short,
says that at Hansi the common Cat breeds with
the F. ornata (or torquata), and that many of the
Domestic Cats of that part of India were undistin-
guishable from the wild F. ornata; and Dr. KeLaart
states that he has seen hybrids between the Domestic
Cat and Ff. viverrina. Buyta also states that the
Angora Cat breeds freely with the Indian Domestic
Cats, which have been much crossed with the F.
chaus. Darwin remarks that in England half-bred
Angora Cats are perfectly fertile with one another;
and he observes that ‘from these several cases we
see that in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, the
Common Cat, which lives a freer life than most
other domesticated animals, has crossed with various
wild species, and that in some instances it has been
INTERBREEDING OF THE TWO RACES. 91

sufficiently frequent to affect the character of the
breed.”

W. T. BuanFroep (‘ Fauna of British India: Mam-
malia’) states that the Jungle Cat (Felis chaus) fre-
quently breeds with the Domestic Cat of India, and
some of the latter closely resemble it in colour,
although they are considerably smaller; and of Felis
torquata he remarks :—“ Nothing especial is known
of its habits, and it is far from improbable that
specimens of the present form are merely descendants
of tame Cats that have run wild. The converse is,
however, equally probable, that this is the aboriginal
race from which Indian Domestic Cats, and possibly
those of other countries, are derived; and the
circumstance that skins from parts of India so distant
from each other as Nepal, Rajputana, and Kashmir
are precisely similar is in favour of the latter view.”
He agrees with Jerdon and Blyth that all the various
races are varieties of a single species.
92 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

PROPENSITY OF THE DOMESTIC RACE TO ASSUME
THE COLOUR OF THE WILD RACE.

It is a well-known fact that our Domestic Cats will
often desert their homes and take to a feral life, and
that their progeny after one or two generations, what-
ever may have been the colour of the fur of their
parents, invariably put on the grey colour.

A. R. Wattacs, in his work on Natural Selection,
p. 40, says: “Domestic varieties of animals when
turned wild must return to something like near the
type of the original wild stock, or become altogether
extinct.” In a note on this sentence, he says :—
“That is, they will vary, and the variations which
tend to adapt them to the wild state, and therefore
approximate them to wild animals, will be preserved.
Those individuals which do not vary sufficiently will

perish.”
Darwiy, /.c., considers that domesticated animals

which return to a wild state are always exposed to
new conditions of life, and agrees with Mr. Wallace,
that they have to seek their own food and enter into
competition with the native productions, and must
undergo some change and have a tendency to revert
to the primitive state. Feral Cats (7. e. Cats run
wild), he says, both in Europe and La Plata, are
regularly striped, and grow to an unusual size, but
do not differ from the Domestic Cat in any other
character. Breeds of Cats, he says, imported into
this country soon disappear, as, from their nocturnal
and rambling habits, free crossing cannot be pre-
vented.
COLOUR IMITATION. 93

In New Zealand, where there are none but Domestic
Cats which have been imported, DirrrenBacu (‘Travels
in New Zealand’) relates that the imported Cats, on
the breaking up of the tribes, were dispersed in
the forests, and had become wild and caused great
destruction to many of the native birds; and Darwin
states on the same authority that these Cats had all
assumed a streaky grey colour.

‘The Domestic Cat,” says Darwin, “has run wild
in several countries, and everywhere assumes, as far
as can be judged by the short recorded descriptions,
a uniform character. Near Maldonado, in La Plata,
I shot one which seemed perfectly wild; it was care-
fully examined by Mr. Waterhouse, who found nothing
remarkable in it excepting its great size.”

Sir W. Jarpine, ‘ Natur. Libr.,’ art. “ Egyptian Cat,”
p. 248, vol. ii.), says :—‘‘ There is perhaps no animal
that so soon loses its cultivation and returns appa-
rently to a state completely wild; a trifling neglect of
proper feeding or attention will often cause them to
depend upon their own resources, and the tasting of
some wild or living food will tempt them to seek it
again and to leave their civilized home. They then
prowl about in the same manner as their confréres,
crouching among covert and carefully concealing
themselves from all publicity. They breed in the
woods or thickets, and support themselves upon birds
or young animals.”

St. Joun (‘ Nat. Hist. of Morayshire’) states that
Domestic Cats of a grey or tabby colour are more ~
inclined to take to the woods and hunt for themselves
than those of a different colour. The same author
(‘ Wild Sports of the Highlands ’) remarks, that what-
94 THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

ever may have been the colour of the parents, those
bred out of them are almost invariably of the beautiful
brindled grey colour of the Wild Cat.

In many of the skins of the Wild Cats from dif-
ferent parts of Europe of the present day, as well as
in those of the offspring of Domestic Cats run wild,
the fur, particularly about the muzzle, underpart of
the throat, chest, and abdomen, is much mixed with
white hairs; in some, these parts are almost white.
This is probably the result of the interbreeding of the
two races, as in the fur of both African Wild Cats
(F. chaus and F. maniculata), the original ancestors
of our Domestic variety, the muzzle, underparts of
the throat and chest have many white hairs, and the
fur of the abdomen is almost, if not quite, white.

Gesner (‘ Hist. Animal.’), describing the Wild Cat
of Switzerland, states that between the breast and the
neck there is a broad patch of very white hairs; but
was he describing an example of the true Felis syl-
vestris? The following sentence appears to show
that even in his time the original race had been
modified by the imported Domestic variety :—‘‘Sed
forte, ut domestici, coloribus variant, ita etiam feri
non uno colore reperiuntur, in diversis regionibus
presertim. Quem ego circa finem Septembris apud
nos captum consideravi hujusmodi fuit ” *.

* Tn the first edition of the ‘ Historie Animalium,’ 1551, the words
from Sed to presertim are omitted, but appear in the second edition
published at Frankfort in 1620, some years after Gesner’s death ;
it was evidently a printer’s error, as the latter part of the sentence,
which is given in the edition of 1551, could have no mcaning
without the previous words.
PEDIGREE. 95

In tracing the lineal descent of the Wild Cat of
Europe, it may be divided into five periods :—

1. The Pleistocene Cats: Felis catus magna and Felis catus
minuta of Schmerling; the Cats of the Prehistoric
Period,

2. The Wild Cat, Felis sylvestris, previous to the intro-
duction into Europe of the Egyptian Domestic Cat,
c. 500 B.c.

3. The Wild Cat, Felis sylvestris, after the introduction
of the Egyptian Domestic Cat, with occasional inter-
breeding of the two races: from 500 B.c. to 1200 a.p.

4. The Wild Cat, Felis catus (Liun.), when, from the

more general distribution of the Domestic race, the
interbreeding had become more general: from 13th
to 18th century.

. Felis catus ferus, the mixed breed, between the above

and the Domestic Cat: the Wild Cat of the present
time.*

or

If the supposition be correct, that Felis catus magna
of Schmerling is identical with Felis caffra of
historic times, it is possible that the European Wild
Cat and the Egyptian Domestic Cat are derived from
one common ancestor.

[As these sheets were passing through the press an in-
teresting article on the Wild Cat of Europe appeared,
illustrated with two plates, in the ‘ Atti della Societa Italiana
di Scienze Naturali,’ vol. xxxv., by Professor GuianciTo
Marroretut, in which he describes two Wild Cats, one from
Sardinia and one from the Tuscan Maremma, differing, he
states, so entirely from the Wild Cats of the Alps and the
rest of Western Europe that he regards them as a new race,
closely allied to the African Cat (Felis maniculata), to which
he gives the name of Felis meditcrranea. |

 

* There is also a feral cat, the offspring of Domestic Cats run
wild, often described as Wild Cat.
APPENDIX.

BAR RRR eee

MEASUREMENTS OF THE SKULLS

OF

FELIS CATUS AND FELIS DOMESTICA

IN THE COLLECTION OF THE NATURAL HISTORY DEPART-
MENT OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, COLLEGE OF SURGEONS,

THE MUSEUM OF THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE,

BERLIN, &c., &c.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BRITISH.
Basal | Breadth ; Parietal
Locality. Sex. |lengthof over peed Pe (sagittal)
skull. |parietals. ridge.
mm. mm.
Scotland ......... Male. 85 51 Round, Broad and flat. |Short, well
bulging. marked,
” ” 82 48 ” ” ”
‘i 4 80 53 5 i Short.
is 9 82°5 51 ” ” ”
ie a 88'°3 48 Compressed, |Narrow, con- | Extended half-
elongated. | caveincentre.|) way along
the sagittal
suture.
" $i 78°5 46 Round, com- | Narrow, flat. | Short.
pressed.
i “i 81:5 45°5 | Round, Broad and flat. 55
bulging.
” ” 89 48 ”» ” ”
” i. 82 45°5 ” ” ”
35 “ 87 52 a Broad, convex. | Short, thick,
strong.
a i 83°5 50 Round, Broad and flat. 5
bulging.
5 93 84 49°6 3} ms Short.

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX. 97
FOREIGN.
Basal | Breadth Parietal
. Form of Form of :
Locality. Sex. flenethof| over ° : (sagittal)
y siznll. |parietals.| "20m frontal bones. ridge.

Evropr.

mm. mm.

Hungary ...... Male. 88 44 Compressed, |Narrow, concave] Extended as far
elongated. | in centre. as coronal,

suture,

Germany, S. ... - view) 46 Bulging. o Short, well
marked,

Meeery, is 79 48 ‘ Broad, convex. | Short.

Sardinia yr 81 48 % Broad, flat. 3

Spain .... i 85 46 Round, Narrow,concave.|__,,

Stu) Dacama ant 5 865 - 47 Compressed. 9 Extended half-

Greece ......... se 76 61 way along

3 Z ss suture.
AFRICA,

Felis chaus...... $i 96 56 Elongated, | Broad, concave | Extended. 3 ex-
slightly in centre. amined.
bulging.

F, maniculata.,.) ,, 7 61 | Bulging. Broad and flat. |Short. 7 exam-
ined; all
similar.

i an is 81:5 53 on Pp Short.

Mumny Cat ... fe 94 65 Bulging, but 3 Short, strong.
elongated.

is Fr 84 45 | Bulging. Broad, concave. | Short, slight.
DOMESTIC.
Basal | Breadth ; Form of | Parietal
Species. Sex. | length | over Fein of | “frontal (sagittal)
of skull. |parietals.| “@""™ | bones. ridge.
mm. mm
Domestic Cats .| Male. 83 47 Bulging. ee and | Very short.
at.
” ” 85 43 ” ” Short.
9) ” 83 46'5 ” ” oo
a ” 78 47 ” ” ”
” ” 74 45 ” ” ”
” yw 73 45°65 ” ” ”
Hybrid or Mon-
grel(Scotland) ay 77 48 0 es Very short.
” ” 77 48 a ” ”

 

 

 
98

THE WILD CAT OF EUROPE.

Measurements of the Skulls of the Wild Cats in the Museum
at Berlin, by Dy, A. Newrrne.

 

 

 

Basal Breadth fo of pee aoe
* : over skull, ength of the inter- ie
Loeality. Sex. lenge ot arch of | brain-case | parietal (sagittal) Age
sku: | parietals. proper. ridge.
From Collection of ar nu mr
the Duke of Wiir-
temberg ............ Male. 775 46°25 |Round, Very slight. 14, | Adult.
; arched.
33 3 81 44°25 |Longish. | Fair. 14 ee
” ¥ 79°5 47 Round. Moderate. 13°5 %
District of Saar,
Rhine Province,
1890s serientinteicics Female. | 76 45 Round and | Fair. 14 | Old but
arched. small.
Hesse, 1876 ......... Male. 89'5 46°5 | Round. None. Adult.
Gottingen, Hanover,
1866 oo... Female. | 80 46 Hi We eee a
Saxony, 1863......... Male. 91 46°5 | Longish. Ney oily deve- 20 3
oped.
Dobrudscha, 1877 ... ‘s 84°5 45 3 Moderate. 12 “
Meisdorf, in the
Harz Mountains,
VBS 7 odes shinies Female. | 79 46 Round and | Moderate. 12°5 4
Meisdorf, in the arched.
Harz Mountains,
1890 35. scsepanes aves Male. 85 46°25 |Longish. | Moderate. 12°5 | Old.
Near Driburg, West-
phalia ; coll. Dr.
Nehring, 1888 ...|_,, 81:25 46°5 5 Fairly developed. 16 .
Sdlling ; coll. Dr.
Nehring, 1876 ...|__,, 45 Pa Well developed. 18 6
Harz; coll. G. Rorig,
1893. scvssmaacnson 45 82 45 Round and | Fair. 14
arched.
Meisdorf am Harz,
N88) csscncccinecvcnvin Female. | 71 45 Roundish.
Andernach, Rhine;
coll. Dr. Nehring,
VBS scitsdaewesnenpes Male. 70 43°25 - Slight. 10 |7 months
Geseke, Westphalia, old.
BOA) acess Wale a 82 46 Longish. | Moderate. 13/1 year

 

 

 

 

 

 

old.

 

 
APPENDIX, 99

Measurements of Eight Skulls from the Pleistocene deposits in the
Caverns of Engis and Ingihoul, Province of Liége, Belgium, by
Dr. Jurren Frarpona, Professor of Paleontology in the University
of Liége.

 

 

 

Parietal
Basal length | Breadth over :
of skulls. parietals. (sagittal)
ridge.
Length.
mm. mm. mm.
77 41 23
74, 41 15
75 . 43 12
75 41 13
68. 39 20
68 40 17
7 os sa 16
8 (Ingihoul) 72 42 13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AQD FRANCIS, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
 

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