different conditions of life. In other cases some slight effect may
possibly be attributed to natural selection, as cats in many cases have
largely to support themselves and to escape diverse dangers. But man, owing
to the difficulty of pairing cats, has done nothing by methodical
selection; and probably very little by unintentional selection; though in
each litter he generally saves the prettiest, and values most a good breed
of mouse- or rat-catchers. Those cats which have a strong tendency to prowl
after game, generally get destroyed by traps. As cats are so much petted, a
breed bearing the same relation to other cats, that lapdogs bear to larger
dogs, would have been much valued; and if selection could have been
applied, we should certainly have had many breeds in each long-civilised
country, for there is plenty of variability to work upon.

We see in this country considerable diversity in size, some in the
proportions of the body, and extreme variability in colouring. I have only
lately attended to this subject, but have already heard of some singular
cases of variation; one of a cat born in the West Indies toothless, and
remaining so all its life. Mr. Tegetmeier has shown me the skull of a
female cat with its canines so much developed that they protruded uncovered
beyond the lips; the tooth with the fang being .95, and the part projecting
from the gum .6 of an inch in length. I have heard of several families of
six-toed cats, in one of which the peculiarity had been transmitted for at
least three generations. The tail varies greatly in length; I have seen a
cat which always carried its tail flat on its back when pleased. The ears
vary in shape, and certain strains, in England, inherit a pencil-like tuft
of hairs, above a quarter of an inch in length, on the tips of their ears;
and this same peculiarity, according to Mr. Blyth, characterises some cats
in India. The great variability in the length of the tail and the lynx-like
tufts of hairs on the ears are apparently analogous to differences in
certain wild species of the genus. A much more important difference,