ERNEST INGERSOLL.
CAT, Domestic, The. The influence of the domestic cat upon American civilization has received less consideration than it deserves, for a great deal of the advance of agriculture as well as of the spreading out over the vast wood land and prairies has been made possible by this much abused and misunderstood animal. How much food cats have saved, how much property they, have guarded from destruction, what plagues of vermin they have kept in check, from the time this country was first settled, it is im possible to compute. But for their sleepless vigilance the large cities would quickly be over run with rats and mice.
The government appropriates money every year for the maintenance of cats in the post offices and other public buildings of the larger cities, in order to keep down the vermin that would gnaw holes in mail-sacks and destroy public records and other property. It is recog nized in the national printing office of France, where vast quantities of paper are stored, and where an army of cats is retained to keep the mice in check. In Vienna it is regarded as a part of good municipal government to take care of the cats. The United States government has systematized its cat service in public insti tutions, and in Pittsburgh a certain strain has been bred to live in cold storage houses, and is developing characteristics peculiar to this kind of life. In warehouses, corn-cribs, barns, mills and wherever grain or food is stored, cats must be kept. But to be effective, they must be taken care of, for well-fed cats are the best mousers.
Origin and History of the House Formerly it was carelessly thought that our house cats were simply the progeny of tamed pairs of the European wildcat; but anatomy denied the probability of this, and historical in vestigation showed that they came from another source. This source is the North-African °gloved° or cat (Fells libyca), which, as historical evidence, including innumerable mummies, shows, was domesticated by the Egyptians before the time of the oldest monu ments of their civilization. Moreover, the
characteristic specific markings of the caffre cat (still wild as well as tame in the Nile Val ley) reappear unmistakably in our common house cats, in spite of the fact that interbreed ing with other species, and various local races, has intervened. A well-marked variety of this cat was to he found anciently, and now, in Syria and eastward, known as the Mediter ranean cat. It is established that many cen turies before the Christian era the Egyptians, Cretans, Phoenicians and other men of the Levant were constantly' voyaging all over the Mediterranean Sea, and founding trading-posts on both its shores, where finally arose and spread the extensive civilizations of Greece and of Rome on the north, and of Carthage on the •south. With these colonists undoubtedly went their friendly and useful mousers. That they then were crossed somewhat with the native wildcat seems to be shown by the appearance of the peculiar form we call cats. This, in brief, is the history of the common European house cat, whence have come, by emi gration, those of America and most of the civilized world.
In the remote and isolated East, however, exist races of domesticated cats of more local origin. Prof. G. Martorelli, of Milan, Italy, has made a special study of this whole sub ject; and he has concluded that the ordinary domestic cat of India has descended from the Indian desert cat (Fells ornata). From it, he says, are derived their common spotted breed, while the fulvous breed seen in India has been produced by a cross with the native jungle cat (Fells chous). Both these have interbred with the imported western cats in recent years. The Persian or "Angoras long-haired breeds may probably have come from Pallas' cat of cen tral Asia; and the curious Siamese cat is re garded as derived from the golden cat. The intermingling accidentally, or by the design of breeders, of these various species and races has produced the bewildering variety of forms now seen. Consult on this subject Ingersoll, 'Life of Mammals) (New York 1909, with bibliography).