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, according to Daubenton,[99] is that the intestines of domestic cats are wider, and a third longer, than in wild cats of the same size; and this apparently has been by their less strictly carnivorous diet. REFERENCES [1] Owen ‘British Fossil Mammals,’ pp. 123 to 133. Pictet’s ‘Traité de Pal.,’ 1853, tom. i. p. 202. De Blainville in his ‘Ostéographie, Canidæ,’ p. 142, has largely discussed the whole subject, and concludes that the extinct parent of all domesticated dogs came nearest to the wolf in organisation, and to the jackal in habits. _See also_ Boyd Dawkins, ‘Cave Hunting,’ 1874, p. 131, etc., and his other publications. Jeitteles has discussed in great detail the character of the breeds of pre-historic dogs: ‘Die vorgeschichtlichen Alterthümer der Stadt Olmütz,’ II. Theil, 1872, p. 44 to end.