HE EUROPEAN WILD CAT, FROM
ROSS-SHIRE, SCOTLAND. (Cf. Fig. 1 on Plate II.)]

_Note_--Of the two types of colouration found in modern domestic cats,
the striped type obviously corresponds to the original wild cat as
seen in various parts of North Europe to-day. The origin of the
blotched as a special type is wholly unknown.

(Photos from Plates VIII., IX., and X., _P.Z.S._, 1907, by permission
of the Zoological Society of London.)

PLATE II.

[Illustration: _Photo, W.G. Berridge_. FIG. 1.--EUROPEAN WILD CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, W.G. Berridge_. FIG. 2.--PALLAS'S CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, R.C. Ryan_. FIG. 3.--ROYAL SIAMESE CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 4.--STRIPED
DOMESTIC CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 5.--BLOTCHED
DOMESTIC CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, R.C. Ryan_ FIG. 6.--TAIL-LESS CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 7.--WHITE PERSIAN
KITTEN.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 8.--BLUE PERSIAN
CAT.]

[Illustration: _Photo, Topical Press Agency_. FIG. 9.--BLACK PERSIAN
KITTEN.]

The favourite haunts of the wild cat are mountain forests where masses
or rocks or cliffs are interspersed with trees, the crevices in these
rocks or the hollow trunks of trees affording sites for the wild cat's
lair, where its young are produced and reared. In the Spanish plains,
however, the young are often produced in nests built in trees, or among
tall bamboos in cane-brakes. "To fight like a wild cat" is
proverbial, and wild cats are described as some of the most ferocious
and untamable of all animals. How far this untamable character lends
support to the view of the origin of our domesticated breeds has not yet
been determined. Hares, rabbits, field-mice, water-rats, rats,
squirrels, moles, game-birds, pigeons, and small birds, form the chief
food of the wild cat.

Apart from the above-mentioned division of the striped members of both
groups into two types according to the pattern of their markings, the
domesticated cats of western Europe are divided into a short-haired and
a long-haired group. Of these, the former is the one which bears the
closest relationship to the wild cats of Africa and of Europe, the
latter being an importation from the East. The striped (as distinct from
the blotched) short-haired tabby is probably the one most nearly allied
to the wild ancestors, the