modified in many cases by crosses with other breeds; and as we shall
hereafter see that the breeding of dogs was attended to in ancient times,
as it still is by savages, we may conclude that we have in selection, even
if only occasionally practised, a potent means of modification.

DOMESTIC CATS.

Cats have been domesticated in the East from an ancient period; Mr. Blyth
informs me that they are mentioned in a Sanskrit writing 2000 years old,
and in Egypt their antiquity is known to be even greater, as shown by
monumental drawings and their mummied bodies. These mummies, according to
De Blainville (1/88. De Blainville 'Osteographie, Felis' page 65 on the
character of F. caligulata; pages 85, 89, 90, 175, on the other mummied
species. He quotes Ehrenberg on F. maniculata being mummied.), who has
particularly studied the subject, belong to no less than three species,
namely, F. caligulata, bubastes, and chaus. The two former species are said
to be still found, both wild and domesticated, in parts of Egypt. F.
caligulata presents a difference in the first inferior milk molar tooth, as
compared with the domestic cats of Europe, which makes De Blainville
conclude that it is not one of the parent-forms of our cats. Several
naturalists, as Pallas, Temminck, Blyth, believe that domestic cats are the
descendants of several species commingled: it is certain that cats cross
readily with various wild species, and it would appear that the character
of the domestic breeds has, at least in some cases, been thus affected. Sir
W. Jardine has no doubt that, "in the north of Scotland, there has been
occasional crossing with our native species (F. sylvestris), and that the
result of these crosses has been kept in our houses. I have seen," he adds,
"many cats very closely resembling the wild cat, and one or two that could
scarcely be distinguished from it." Mr. Blyth (1/89. Asiatic Soc. of
Calcutta; Curator's Report, August 1856. The passage from Sir W. Jardine is