The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-10-05
THE DOMESTIC CIT.
Its Probable Origin-Different Species
 Some of the Personal Traits of Cats. Robert Blight in the New York Evening

Some Of the Personal Traits of Cats.
 Robert Blight in the New York Evening
 Post.l
 We have around the place kitten of rather blueish color-what a disciple of Izaak Walton would call blue dun" Its fur is perhaps little more fluffy than usual, and this, combined with it's color, makes it an object of discussion among the ladies. One de- clares it is Maltese; another is equally confident that it is a Persian; another ayers that it is an Angora; one goes so far as to say that it is Prussian cat. When l am asked to decide, and ven- ture to suggest that the lady who says Maltese" is thinking of dogs; that Per- sian and Angora are the same, but these cats are white when pure; that "Prussian" reminds me of carp, but they should be called "Crucian," there is a howl of execration. However l restore peace by awarding the decision to no one, but "speering," as they still say in the isle of the tailless cats, whether it may not be Chartreuse. l am told that I am thinking not of ani- mals at all, but of what all men are noted for liking-good dinners-but am contented, for the discussion ends just where it began, like so many de- bates in dignified assemblies, in every one holding her own opinion.
 Rarely is there room for discussion about the domestic cat, because it's his tory is a curious one. The animal be- longs to that genus Felis which SUD- plies the most terrible and ferocious of animals. The members of the genus are distributed over the whole of the old world and the new world, except Madagascar and Australia. The i'm mediate relatives of the domestic cat in the old world are the lion. the tiger, the leopard or panther, the ounce, the ser val and many smaller animals called tiger-cats and wild cats. In the new world the house pet claims kindred with the puma, or cougar, or panther of the United States, the jaguar, the Ocelot, and the pampas cat. What is called the American wild cat is not real ly a cat, but a lynx.
 To which of the existing wild felidae shall we ascribe the domestic cat? Man in the distant past must have talk en wild animal and domesticated it, and it ought to be possible still to trace the ancestry among the cats which roam at large. It certainly cannot be assigned to the wild cat of Europe | The greater size and the peculiar shape of the tail, which is of uniform thickness in this species, renders 1t i'm. possible, so to speak, for it to be the an cestor of the domestic cat It was long thought that the gloved cat of Nubia which has been found mummified ir Egyptian tombs, was the forefather In size and tapering tall it undoubtedly reminds one of our tame friend, but there are almost insuperable difficulties in the arrangement of the teeth. It has been suggested that the form was ar rived at by crossing several species but this is scarcely probable, for mar would not perform the crossing, but would take some animal out of the forest. The most probable solution i! that the domestic cat sprang from ont of the wild cats of India called feli. chaus. In the middle ages cats were Europe, indicating a difficulty in pro curing them, although the wild cat wa! everywhere abundant. The domestica tion must have taken place very earl. ill human history. Monumental flgure and mummies are met with in the relic of ancient Egypt, and Sanscrit writing of two thousand years ago record thu connection between man and the cat.
 The animal Is one which exhibits strong tendency to variation, and yet although it has been under domestica tion probably as long as the dog, not :; tenth of the number of varieties 0 dogs, which reach one hundred ant eighty-nine, exits among cats. This probably due to the nocturnal wander ing habits of the cat. Still there ar some very strongly marked varieties We may mention the tabby; the tor toise-shell with it's mixed coloring 0 black, white and yellow, found only i the feminine gender; the chartreuse, c bluish-gray color; the Angora, wit long silky hair of a dusky white; tn Manx, with a "scut" like a rabbit, in stead of a tail; the Madagascar, wit twisted tail; the Chinese, with droor ing ears; and the red-colored breed c Tobolsk. Of all these the gentlest an most domestic is the Angora, whic comes not from Angora, butsfrom IsI ahan and the neighborhood of Lak Van in Persia.
 In Egypt, of old, cats were sacred t 1sis-the moon goddess-and were en balmed with great care. Modern Egyr tians may look upon them with differ ent eyes, but they still value them, fo in Cairo there is well-endowed inst tution where homeless cats''a care for s' < l In the middle ages In Europe the ca was associated with witchcraft, an one of the weird sisters who ruled tn fate of the age was not complete with out her black cat to represent her mas iter. or grimalkin-a gray cat to Eanrs