“Catus amat pisces sed. aquas intrare recusat, they have been known to overcome their aversion to water in order to gratify their taste for fish. The offspring of such semi-wild forms gradually assume a uniform colouring not unlike that of the wild cat,—a similarity which led to the supposition that the house cat was but a domesticated form of Felis catus. The greater size, however, of the latter, the uniform thickness of its tail—a peculiarity which never reappears in any of the domestic varieties, nor in those which have returned to the wild state—along with the fact of the great scarcity of house cats and the high value set upon them throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, when the wild form was everywhere abundant, may be held to prove that the domestic cat is specifically distinct from the wild form of our woods. Its origin, like that of many other domestic animals, is sufficiently obscure to have become a matter of more or less probable conjecture. Reference is made to it in Sanskrit writings 2000 years old, and still more ancient records of it are to be found in the monumental figures and cat mummies of Egypt. The latter, according to De Blainville, belong to three distinct species, two of which are said to be still found, both wild and domesticated, in parts of Egypt. The Gloved Cat of Nubia {Felis maniadata), which also occurs as a mummy, approaches most nearly in size, and in the tapering form of the tail, to the domestic cat, but Professor Owen has shown that there are peculiarities in the dentition of this species, sufficient to invalidate its claim to be considered the ancestor of the domestic form. The difficulty of recognizing this ancestor in any single wild species has led many naturalists, including Temminck, Pallas, and Blyth, to the conclusion that Felis domestica is the product of many species commingled; and whatever weight may be attached to this view, there is sufficient evidence to show that domestic cats in different parts of the world have been greatly modified by frequent crossings with such wild species as occur in those parts. In the north of Scotland at the present day, the native species is believed occasionally to cross with the house cat, the product living in the houses. Such crosses would, no doubt, be much more frequent in ages when the wild cat was superabundant throughout Europe, and it is evidently owing to this, that, as Mr Blyth states, the affinity of the ordinary British cat to Felis catus, as compared with any Indian tame cat, is manifest. The latter, according to the same authority, has crossed with no fewer than four Indian wild species, and a tame specimen lately added to the British Museum, agreed, in Dr Gray’s opinion, in almost every character with the Indian wild species Felis chaus. Similar instances of the crossing of native species with the domestic form have been noted in Algeria, South Africa, and Paraguay. Although the cat has probably been domesticated quite as long as the dog, the number of distinct breeds inhabiting the same country, to which it has given rise, is strikingly small in comparison with those of the latter,—a fact owing, probably, to the nocturnal habits of the cat and the consequent difficulty in preventing indiscriminate crossing. That it is not owing to any inherent want of variability is proved by the very distinct breeds that have been developed in insular and other isolated situations, such as the tailless cats of the Isle of Man, which differ in size of head and length of limbs, as well as in absence of tail from the ordinary form, and the domestic cate of the Malayan Archipelago, in which the tail is short and truncated. The best known and most distinct varieties are the Tabby; the Tortoise-shell or Spanish, with its pleasing mixture of black, white, and yellow; the Chartreuse, of a bluish-grey colour; and the Angora, with long silky hair of a dusky white, a favourite drawing-room pet, and the gentlest of all the varieties. Among less known breeds are the Chinese, with pendulous ears, the red-coloured breed of Tobolsk, and the twistedtailed cats of Madagascar.

The disposition and habits of the domestic cat are familiar to all, and need not be dwelt upon here. It has never evinced that devotion to man which characterizes the dog, though many individual cases of feline attachment might be quoted. It becomes, however, strongly attached to particular localities, and will find its way back frcm the most distant places although conveyed thither under cover. How it performs such feats has long puzzled naturalists, and no theory that has yet been advanced seems adequately to meet the case. It has been contended recently by Mr A. R. Wallace that a cat which is being conveyed to a distance blindfold will have its sense of smell in full exercise, and will by this means take note of the successive odours it encounters on the way; that these will leave on its mind “a series of images as distinct as those we should receive by the sense of sight;” and that “the recurrence of these odours in their proper inverse order—every house, ditch, field, and village having its own well-marked individuality would make it an easy matter for the animal in question to follow the identical route back, however many turnings and cross roads it may have followed” (Nature, February 20, 1873).

Among the ancient Egyptians.the cat was sacred to Isis or the moon; temples were raised, and sacrifices offered in its honour, and its body was embalmed at death. Nor is this feeling quite extinct among modem Egyptians, for in Cairo at the present time there is an endowment in operation for the lodging and feeding of homeless cats.

In the folk-lore of European nations the cat is regarded with suspicion as the favourite agent of witchcraft, and seems often to have shared in the cruelties inflicted on those who were supposed to practise the “black art.” In Germany at the present day black cats are kept away from the cradles of children as omens of evil, while the appearance of a black cat on the bed of a sick person used to be taken as an announcement of approaching death.