The Cat: Zoology, Origins, History, Behaviour, Habits, Races, Anatomy, Illnesses, Jurisprudence
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THE CAT ZOOLOGY – ORIGINS –HISTORY – BEHAVIOUR – HABITS – RACES – ANATOMY – ILLNESSES –JURISPRUDENCE By Alexandre Landrin Member of the French National Society of Acclimatisation And of numerous Academies and Societies of Savants in France, Spain and Italy. Cats are the tigers of poor devils. (Théophile Gauthier.) Published by George Carre, Editor, 3 Rue Racine, 3, Paris 1894 DEDICATION To my beloved Wife, whose affection, devotion and impartiality, so well appreciated by those who know you, and whose solicitude extends also to our little brothers, the animals, whom you have protected so well, I dedicate this modest work. Animals, less forgetful than many of those whom you have loved and filled with benevolence, giving solace against human ingratitude A. Landrin. ZOOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CAT The Cat is a vertebrate mammal belonging to the Carnivorous order, the Carnivora family and the Digitigrades tribe; it forms the genus that Linnaeus, in his Systema Naturae in 1735, named Felis, thus preserving the name which the Latins had given to this generic group of animals. Genus Felis is characterized by a rounded head and muzzle, a short, slightly arched snout, highly vaulted zygomatic arches, and short jaws. The total number of teeth is thirty: sixteen in the upper jaw, distributed as six incisors, two canines - one on each side - and eight molars - four on each side; fourteen in the lower jaw, comprising six incisors, two canines - one on each side - and six molars - three on each side. The incisors are aligned in the upper and lower jaws. The canines are very strong. The upper molars have lobed edges; the first two are conical and rather thick, the third is very large, with three lobes, and the the last is tubercular and wider than is long. The first two lower molars, on each side of the two jaws, are compressed and simple, and the last molar has two cusps. LEGENDS ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF THE CAT There are few animals whose origin has given rise to more legends than the Cat. We believe some of them are of interest here. In fact they testify to the interest and peculiar reverence given to this animal because of the numerous and important services it has performed by ridding our houses and our cultures of nuisances, above all of rodents. According to the authors of Greek mythology, Apollo, wishing to frighten his sister created the Lion; Diana, to take revenge on this action, resolved to ridicule the Lion by creating, in turn, the Cat. According to the Arabs, "When Noah brought a pair of each type of animal into the ark, his companions and family members said to him ‘What security can there be for us and the animals, as long as the Lion is living with us in this narrow building?’ The patriarch began to pray and implored the Lord. Immediately a fever descended from heaven and took hold of the king of beasts so that peace was restored to the inhabitants of the ark. There is no other explanation for the origin of fever in this world. "But there was another, equally harmful, enemy in the ship: the mouse. Noah's companions pointed out to him that it would be impossible for them to keep their effects and provisions intact. After a new prayer addressed to the Almighty by the Patriarch, the Lion sneezed, and a cat flew out of his nostrils. From that moment the mouse has always been timid and has developed the habit of hiding in the holes.” (Darnisei, Eighth Century Of The Hegira.) Mulla, the minister of the Muslim religion, who accompanied the ambassador of the Porte in France, told Moncrif, author of a History of Cats, a strange legend about the origin of the Cat, which he reproduced in his book : " In the first days when the animals were confined in the ark, astonished at the movement of the boat and their new dwelling, they remained in their own quarters without asking what was happening with their neighbours. The monkey was the first one who got bored of this sedentary life and he went to have some fun with a young lioness.... It was through the love of the Monkey and the Lioness that a male and female cat were born ... " FOSSIL CATS The discoveries of fossilised bones of cats in the caves of Germany, in those of Kent in England, as well as in those of several localities of Belgium, including those in the neighborhood of Liège; in France, particularly at Lunel-Viel, by Schmerling, Richard Orwen, Mac Emy, Marcel de Serres, Bravard-Croizet, Jobert, Dubreuil, etc., of which G. Cuvier and de Blainville have made such a remarkable study, attest to the antiquity of species of the genus Felis. According to Blainville, the number of real fossil species is [ut by him at fourteen, although, according to some paleontologists, the figure may exceed twenty in ancient Europe alone. Here is what the learned naturalist de Blainville said on this interesting subject: "Since the time, very remote, no doubt, where the degradation of the preceding formations produced the middle tertiary lands, to the point where our soil was covered with the enormous layer of diluvium which is observed over a large part of Europe, there has always existed, in the vast forests which covered it at that time, a fairly good number of Felis species of very different sizes, from that of a pony to that of the house-cat, for there were abundant Ruminant and Pachyderm populations, just as the modern Felids of Africa, Asia, and America have the herbivores of those parts of the world. With the decline and disappearance of these, possibly determined by the forests and by partial and general flooding, those carnivore species also declined and disappeared in natural harmony; but it seems that their disappearance preceded that of the other species less eminently disposed to eat only flesh: Most of those species were more or less analogous to those which now exist in the two great parts of the ancient continent; but they also found some which do not currently appear to exist on the surface of the earth, and which fill gaps in the zoological series. Amongst others, one of those forms possed long, sabre-like canines in the upper jaw. Whatever determined a corresponding arrangement of the lower jaw and its front teeth seems to have been peculiar to temperate Europe. At least, up to the present time, we know of no living species of Felis, great or small great, that has anything analogous to Felis cultridens." ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF DOMESTIC CAT The Cat, in all likelihood, was acclimatized [adopted, domesticated] at the same time as the Horse, that is to say about 1638 BC. The cradle of its acclimatization and domestication is Egypt. Although it is not known exactly where the Egyptians got this animal from, it is quite certain that from the east of that country it passed through Europe from where it has spread to every part of the earth. Wherever one meets it, it shows little diversity of character; i.e. a cat examined in Guinea resembles one from Holland; one observed in America has characteristics of the Spanish Cat; we see that those encountered in India or Madagascar have not undergone any notable changes. The Egyptians gave it the names of Mau, Mai, Maau, and, on some monuments, it is called Chaou. Representations of the Cat in various forms can be found on tombs in Thebes built during the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, that is to say from 1638 to 1440 BC. It was used by the Egyptians, who had trained it to seek game in swamps. Numerous documents represent cats accompanying hunters in their boats. The Egyptians counted the cat among their sacred animals the cat, calling it bubastis, probably because of the town sacred to these animals. The Egyptians’ veneration of the cat rested on their belief that Isis, to avoid the fury of Typhon and the Giants, had disguised herself as a cat to hide from them. Many medals, also called bubastis or Bast, represent this goddess as a secondary form of Pasht, with a cat's head. The cat was so revered that the Egyptians punished the killing, whether intentional or accidental, of one of these animals with the most cruel tortures. Diodorus of Sicily says, about thirty years B.C.: "He who kills a cat in Egypt is doomed to death, whether he has committed this crime intentionally or not; the people gather and kill him. An unfortunate Roman, who had accidentally killed a cat, could not be saved by either the Egyptian king Ptolemy or by the fear which Rome might have inspired." In fact it was necessary that this execution should be in good order so that Ptolemy could not impose his royal will,in view of his interest, at that time, in maintaining the friendship of the Romans, which he greatly desired. In around 430 BC, Herodotus said of the cat, which he calls Ailuros: "If a fire breaks out in an Egyptian home, people pay little attention of the fire and think only of their cats. They stood around and watched and if one of them, unfortunately, escaped and threw itself into the flames, the Egyptians uttered loud cries." He went on to say: "When a cat dies naturally, all the inhabitants of the house shave their brows in mourning. The dead cats are placed in sacred apartments, embalmed and carried to the town of Bubastis. " Cat mummies are frequently found in the hypogea of Egyptian tombs. It was Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who first reconstructed and represented the complete skeleton of an Egyptian mummified cat.