We have seen that distant countries possess distinct domestic races of the cat. The differences may be in part due to descent from several aboriginal species, or at least to crosses with them. In some cases, as in Paraguay, Mombas, and Antigua, the differences seem due to the direct action of 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 many breeds in each long-civilized 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 coloring. 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, characterizes 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, 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.

STRIPED HORSES.

The tendency in the horse to become striped is in several respects an interesting fact. Horses of all colors, of the most diverse breeds, in various parts of the world, often have a dark stripe extending along the spine, from the mane to the tail; but this is so common that I need enter into no particulars. Occasionally. horses are transversely barred on the legs, chiefly on the under side; and more rarely they have a distinct stripe on the shoulder, like that on the shoulder of the ass, or a broad dark patch representing a stripe. Before entering on any details I must premise that the term dun-colored is vague, and includes three groups of colors, viz., that between creamcolor and reddish-brown, which graduates into light-bay or light-chestnut-this, I believe is often called fallow-dun; secondly, leaden or slate-colored or mouse-dun, which graduates into an ash-color; and, lastly, dark-dun, between brown and black. In England I have examined a rather large, lightly-built, fallowdun Devonshire pony, with a conspicuous stripe along the back, with light transverse stripes on the under sides of its front legs, and with four parallel stripes on each shoul

der. Of these four stripes the posterior one was very minute and faint; the anterior one, on the other hand, was long and broad, but interrupted in the middle, and truncated at its lower extremity, with the anterior angle produced into a long tapering point. I mention this latter fact because the shoulder-stripe of the ass occasionally presents exactly the same appearance. I have had an outline and description sent to me of a small, purely-bred, light fallow-dun Welsh pony, with a spinal stripe, a single transverse stripe on each leg, and three shoulder-stripes: the posterior stripe corresponding with that on the shoulder of the ass was the longest, whilst the two anterior parallel stripes, arising from the mane, decreased in length, in a reversed manner as compared with the shoulder-stripes on the above-described Devonshire pony. I have seen a bright fallow-dun cob, with its front legs transversely barred on the under sides in the most conspicuous manner also a dark-leaden mouse-colored pony with similar leg stripes, but much less conspicuous; also a bright fallow-dun colt, fully three-parts thoroughbred, with very plain transverse stripes on the legs; also a chestnut-dun cart-horse with a conspicuous spinal stripe, with distinct traces of shoulder-stripes, but none on the legs; I could add other cases. My son made a sketch for me of a large, heavy, Belgian cart-horse, of a fallow-dun, with a conspicuous spinal stripe,

traces of leg-stripes, and with two parallel (three inches apart) stripes about seven or eight inches in length on both shoulders. I have seen another rather light cart-horse, of a dirty dark cream-color with striped legs, and on one shoulder a large ill-defined dark cloudy patch, and on on the opposite shoulder two parallel faint stripes. All the cases yet mentioned are duns of various tints; but Mr. W. W. Edwards has seen a nearly thoroughbred chestnut horse which had the spinal stripe, and distinct bars on the legs; and I have seen two bay carriage-horses with black spinal stripes; one of these horses had on each shoulder a light shoulder-stripe, and the other had a broad back ill-defined stripe, running obliquely halfway down each shoulder; neither had legstripes.

The most interesting case which I have met with occurred in a colt of my own breeding. A bay mare (descended from a dark-brown Flemish mare by a light grey Turcoman horse) was put to Hercules, a thoroughbred dark bay, whose sire (Kingston) and dam were both bays. The colt ultimately turned out brown; but when only a fortnight old it was a dirty bay, shaded with mouse-grey, and in parts with a yellowish tint: it had only a trace of the spinal stripe, with a few obscure transverse bars on the legs; but almost the whole body was marked with very narrow dark stripes, in most parts so obscure as to be