CAT, the name of the well-known domesticated animal Felis domestica, but in a wider sense employed to denote all the more typical members of the family Felidae. The word "cat" is also applied to other objects, in all cases an application of the name of the animal. In mediaeval siegecraft the "cat" was a movable pent house used to protect besiegers when approaching a wall or gate way. "Cat" or "cat-head," in nautical usage, is the projecting beam on the bows of a ship used to clear the anchor from the sides of the vessel when weighed. The name is also used of a type of a vessel, formerly used in the coal and timber trade in north-east England; it is still applied to a small rig of sailing-boats. The instrument of punishment, generally called the "cat o' nine tails," consists of a handle of wood or rope, about 18 in. long, with nine knotted cords or thongs.
One of the features by which the Egyptian differs from the European wild cat is the longer and less bushy tail; and it has been very generally considered that the same feature is character istic of European domesticated cats. Measurement has shown, however, that this feature is not a reliable guide. Possibly those domesticated cats with unusually short and bushy tails may have a larger share of European wild-cat blood, and vice versa.
Tame cats from Egypt were probably imported at an early date into Etruria by Phoenician traders; and there is decisive evidence that they were established in Italy long before the Christian era. The progeny of these cats, more or less crossed with the indigenous species, spread over Europe, to become mingled at some period, according to 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 remains of cats from Roman villas at Silchester and Dursley are probably referable to the domesticated breed.
The favourite haunts of the wild cat are mountain forests where rocks or cliffs are interspersed with trees, the crevices in the rocks or the hollow trunks of trees affording sites for the lair, where the young are produced and reared. Wild cats are described as some of the most ferocious and untamable of all animals. How far this lends support to the view of the origin of our domestic breeds is uncertain. Hares, rabbits, field-mice, water-rats, rats, squirrels, moles, game-birds, pigeons, and small birds, form the chief food of the wild cat.
There appear originally to have been two allied strains of long haired cats, the Angora and the Persian, of which the former has been altogether replaced in western Europe by the latter. That these long-haired cats have an ancestry to some extent distinct from the ordinary short-haired breeds, is practically certain, and they are possibly derived from the manul (Felis manul), of the deserts of central Asia. Modern Persians exhibit nearly all the colour and pattern types of the short-haired breeds.
The tailless or Manx cat, in which the tail should be represented merely by a tuft of hair without any bone, is met with in many parts of Russia, and probably originally came from some far eastern country. Throughout Japan, China, Siam and the Malay countries, normal long-tailed cats are seldom seen. Instead are cats with more or less abbreviated tails, showing in greater or less degree a decided kink or bend near the tip. These cats are smaller than the ordinary short-tailed breeds, with rather longer hair, whose texture approaches that of rabbit-fur. The cry is said to be like that of the jungle-cat (F. chaus) of India and Africa. Kink-tailed cats are also known from Madagascar.
Among the domestic cats of India, spotted colouring, with a tendency for the spots to coalesce into stripes, is noticeable ; and probably these cats are derived from the spotted Indian desert-cat (F. ornata), with crossing from other species. From the jungle cat may be derived the Abyssinian breed, in which the ears are relatively large and occasionally tipped with long hairs (thus recalling the tufted ears of the jungle-cat). The colour is typi cally reddish-brown, e'a.ch hair being "ticked" like that of a wild rabbit.
By far the most remarkable of Old World domesticated breeds is, however, the royal Siamese cat, which almost certainly has an origin distinct from that of the ordinary European breeds. Sia mese cats may have the tail either straight or kinked, but the latter feature may have been acquired by crossing with the ordi nary kink-tailed cats of the country. In the Siamese breed the head is rather long and pointed, the body also elongated with relatively slender limbs, the coat glossy and close, the eyes blue, and the general colour some shade of cream or pink, with the face, ears, feet, under-parts and tail chocolate or seal-brown. There is however a wholly chocolate-coloured strain in which the eyes are yellow. The young are white. These cats are extremely delicate. The blue eyes and the white coat of the kitten indicate that the Siamese is a semi-albino.
It seems probable that southern North America and South America possessed native domesticated breeds of cats previous to the European conquest; and if so, these breeds must be derived from indigenous wild species. One of these is the Paraguay cat, which when adult weighs only about three pounds, and is not more than a quarter the size of an ordinary cat. The body is elongated, and the hair, especially on the tail, short, shiny and close. It may be derived from the jaguarondi (F. jaguarondi). Mexico had a breed of hairless cats, said to have been kept by the Aztecs, but now well-nigh if not completely extinct. Although entirely naked in summer, these cats developed in winter a slight growth of hair on the back and ridge of the tail. Numerous clubs have been founded in Europe and North America to encourage the breeding of cats and to promote cat shows. The short-haired cats are easily managed, but the long-haired varieties need more care owing to the tendency of the hair to shed.