City and Country Cats

1895

Many Curious Points of Difference Between the Two Animals.

An observer has noted that there exist many points of difference between country and city cats. The country cats, he declares, are larger and heavier than those of the city, no reference being made in this comparison to such civic cats as might come under the head of "pampered pets," but only to plain cats — the cats of the back yard and the housetop. This superior weight of the country cat, the observer says, is easily attributable to the diet of small field animals and birds which it enjoys. But there are other peculiarities of difference, he proceeds, which are not so easily attributable to diet. For instance, the color of the country cat is generally either gray or tortoise shell, the commoner color being gray. On the other hand, observes the cat expert, the preponderating color among city cats is black.

In the next place the color of the eyes in city and country cats is found to be very different, the latter leaning largely to gray and green, while the city cats' eyes are mostly yellow and having far more glitter in them than have their country cousins. In the matter of tails, too, there is a difference, the city cat's tail being much longer and carried more nearly on a level with the back than that of the country cat. The country cat's paws are much flatter, broader and softer than the town cat's, the pads of the former being like velvet, and those of the latter like rubber.

Altogether, between the big barreled gray, light eyed, velvet footed country cat, slipping noiselessly through the young wheat stalks, and the scrawny, long tailed, yellow eyed city cat pattering down an alleyway like a flying shadow, there are such differences as will, says the observer, result in time in the formation of two distinct species — Felis rusticus and Felis urbanis. — New York Sun.