The Origin of the Domestic “Blotched” Tabby Cat

Abstract

I AM glad Mr. Vickers has directed the attention of Mendelians to the question of our two types of “tabby” cat. With the same purpose in view, and in the hope of inducing someone with time and facilities at his disposal to carry out breeding experiments with these animals, I recently communicated to the Mendel Society a paper on this subject, which will appear in the forthcoming issue of the journal. The results of such experiments are sure to be interesting, but whether or not they will settle the origin of the “blotched” tabby is another matter. They may turn the balance of the evidence in favour of this or that theory, but it is doubtful if they will result in more than a hypothetical conclusion. For myself I have quite an open mind on the point. As stated in my original paper on English cats, the “blotched” tabby may be regarded provisionally either as a survivor of some extinct cat that formerly inhabited Europe or as a “mutation” of the “striped” tabby. I reserved the names “catus” and “torquata” for these two types as a convenient means of designating them, following Linnaeus's method, which is still in vogue, of assigning a specific epithet to our domesticated animals, like Ovis aries, Canis familiaris, and others, when their origin is uncertain or unknown.