uately protected from the depredations of
rats and mice.

The foregoing opinion as to the dual parentage of our domesticated cats
receives support from observations made many years ago by E. Blyth,
which have recently been endorsed and amplified by R.I. Pocock (_Proc.
Zool. Soc. London_, 1907). According to these observations, two distinct
types of so-called tabby cats are recognizable. In the one the pattern
consists of narrow vertical stripes, and in the other of longitudinal or
obliquely longitudinal stripes, which, on the sides of the body, tend
to assume a spiral or sub-circular arrangement characteristic of the
blotched tabby. This latter type appears to be the true "tabby"; since
that word denotes a pattern like that of watered silk. One or other of
these types is to be found in cats of almost all breeds, whether
Persian, short-haired or Manx; and there appear to be no intermediate
stages between them. Cats of the striped type are no doubt descended
from the European and North African wild cats; but the origin of cats
exhibiting the blotched pattern appears to be unknown. As it was to a
cat of the latter kind that Linnaeus gave the name of _Felis catus_,
Pocock urges that this title is not available for the European wild cat,
which he would call _Felis sylvestris_. Without accepting this proposed
change in nomenclature, which is liable to lead to confusion without any
compensating advantage, it may be suggested that the blotched tabby type
represents Dr Nehring's presumed Chinese element in the cat's parentage,
and that the missing wild stock may be one of the numerous phases of the
leopard-cat (_F. bengalensis_), in some of which an incipient spiral
arrangement of the markings may be noticed on the shoulder.

As to the introduction of domesticated cats into Europe, the opinion is
very generally held that tame cats from Egypt were imported at a
relatively early date into Etruria by Phoenician traders; and there is
decisive evidence that these animals were established in Italy long
before the Christian era. The progeny of these cats, more or less
crossed with the indigenous species, thence gradually spread over
Europe, to become mingled at some period, according to Dr Nehring's
hypothesis, with an Asiatic stock. The earliest written record of the
introduction of domesticated cats into Great Britain dates from about
A.D. 936, when Hywel Dda, prince of South Wales, enacted a law for their
protection. "The Romans,"