The Black-footed Wild Cat is another African species. It is a beautiful spotted-and-lined tabby, the size of a small domestic cat, and as likely as any other to be the origin of our tabby variety, if tame cats came to Europe from Africa. At present it is only found south in the Kalahari Desert and Bechuanaland.
The Kaffir Cat is the common wild cat of the Cape Colony, and a very interesting animal. It is a whole-coloured tawny, upstanding animal, with all the indifference to man and generally independent character of the domestic tom-cat. It is, however, much stronger than the tame cats, with which it interbreeds freely. In the Colony it is often difficult to keep male tame cats, for the wild Kaffir cats come down and fight them in the breeding-season. The Egyptian cat is really the same animal, slightly modified by climate. A very distinct species is the Jungle-cat, ranging from India, through Baluchistan, Syria, and East Africa, and called in Hindustani the Chaus. The European striped wild cat extends to the Himalaya, where the range of the lion-coloured, yellow-eyed chaus begins. The chaus has a few black bars inside the legs, which vary in different regions. The Indian chaus has only one distinctly marked; the Kaffir cat has four or five. The Egyptian Fettered Cat has been said to be the origin of the domestic and sacred cats of Egypt. A male chaus is most formidable when "cornered." General Hamilton chased one, which had prowled into the cantonments on the look-out for fowls, into a fence. "After a long time I spied the cat squatting in a hedge," he writes, "and called for the dogs. When they came, I knelt down and began clapping my hands and cheering them on. The cat suddenly made a clean spring at my face. I had just time to catch it as one would a cricket-ball, and, giving its ribs a strong squeeze, threw it to the dogs; but not before it had made its teeth meet in my arm just above the wrist. For some weeks I had to carry my arm in a sling, and I shall carry the marks of the bite to my grave."
Photo by A. S. Rudland & Sons.
KAFFIR CAT.
The common wild cat of South Africa. It will interbreed with domestic cats.
Photo by A. S. Rudland & Sons.
AFRICAN CHAUS, OR JUNGLE-CAT.
The chaus is the Indian and African equivalent of our wild cat. It is equally strong and savage.