Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
Some few years ago, when reading a review of Knox's 'Autumns on the Spey, ' I came upon the following passage: -" There is no British mammal, or reputed British mammal, of whose character, locality, and even existence we are so totally ignorant as the Wild Cat." This surprised me, particularly as it was from the pen of a well-known writer on natural history; so, with the view of giving a somewhat more connected history of this animal than is usually found in books on natural history, more especially as it was the only example of the Feline family indigenous to Britain, and on the point of becoming extinct, I commenced collecting together all available information relating to this subject, both on the Continent and in this country.
I did not expect to find any difficulty in being able to define the Wild Cat (Felis catus) as a distinct species. The task, however, was not so easy as I anticipated, for I found that the characteristics relied on by most authors as specific were not persistent, were at times absent, and were also often present in the Domestic Cat. Moreover, on a careful examination of a number of examples of the Wild Cat of the present time I found many indications of a mixture of the two races.
It would seem as if the original Wild Cat, as it existed in the olden days, has been almost exterminated throughout Europe, and that its place has been taken by a mongrel race, the result of continual interbreeding during many centuries (2000 years) of the Wild and the imported Domestic Cat, whose original ancestor was probably the Caffer Cat (Felis caffra)....
