Deliberate Practice for Psychotherapists A Guide to

Improving Clinical Effectiveness 1st Edition Tony

Rousmaniere - PDF Download (2025)

https://ebookultra.com/download/deliberate-practice-for-
psychotherapists-a-guide-to-improving-clinical-effectiveness-1st-
edition-tony-rousmaniere/

Visit ebookultra.com today to download the complete set of

ebooks or textbooks
We have selected some products that you may be interested in
Click the link to download now or visit ebookultra.com
for more options!.

Spiritual and Religious Competencies in Clinical Practice

Guidelines for Psychotherapists and Mental Health
Professionals 1st Edition Cassandra Vieten
https://ebookultra.com/download/spiritual-and-religious-competencies-
in-clinical-practice-guidelines-for-psychotherapists-and-mental-
health-professionals-1st-edition-cassandra-vieten/

Behavioral Medicine A Guide for Clinical Practice Third

Edition Mitchell Feldman

https://ebookultra.com/download/behavioral-medicine-a-guide-for-
clinical-practice-third-edition-mitchell-feldman/

Teaching and Learning Through Reflective Practice A

Practical Guide for Positive Action 2nd Edition Tony Ghaye

https://ebookultra.com/download/teaching-and-learning-through-
reflective-practice-a-practical-guide-for-positive-action-2nd-edition-
tony-ghaye/

Swanton s Cardiology A concise guide to clinical practice

Sixth Edition R. H. Swanton

https://ebookultra.com/download/swanton-s-cardiology-a-concise-guide-
to-clinical-practice-sixth-edition-r-h-swanton/
Evidence Based Care for Midwives Clinical Effectiveness
Made Easy 2nd Edition Donna Brayford

https://ebookultra.com/download/evidence-based-care-for-midwives-
clinical-effectiveness-made-easy-2nd-edition-donna-brayford/

Deliberate Practice in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

1st Edition Mark D. Terjesen

https://ebookultra.com/download/deliberate-practice-in-rational-
emotive-behavior-therapy-1st-edition-mark-d-terjesen/

Women s Health in Clinical Practice A Handbook for Primary

Care Current Clinical Practice 1st Edition Amy Lynn Clouse

https://ebookultra.com/download/women-s-health-in-clinical-practice-a-
handbook-for-primary-care-current-clinical-practice-1st-edition-amy-
lynn-clouse/

Prevention Effectiveness A Guide to Decision Analysis and

Economic Evaluation 2nd Edition Anne C. Haddix

https://ebookultra.com/download/prevention-effectiveness-a-guide-to-
decision-analysis-and-economic-evaluation-2nd-edition-anne-c-haddix/

Improving sleep a guide to a good night s rest 1st Edition

Lawrence Jay Epstein

https://ebookultra.com/download/improving-sleep-a-guide-to-a-good-
night-s-rest-1st-edition-lawrence-jay-epstein/
Deliberate Practice for Psychotherapists A Guide to
Improving Clinical Effectiveness 1st Edition Tony
Rousmaniere Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Tony Rousmaniere
ISBN(s): 9781138203204, 1138203203
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 4.06 MB
Year: 2016
Language: english
 DELIBERATE PRACTICE
FOR PSYCHOTHERAPISTS

This text explores how psychotherapists can use deliberate practice

to improve their clinical effectiveness. By sourcing through decades
of research on how experts in diverse fields achieve skill mastery, the
author proposes it is possible for any therapist to dramatically improve
their effectiveness. However, achieving expertise isn’t easy. To improve,
therapists must focus on clinical challenges and reconsider century-old
methods of clinical training from the ground up. This volume presents a
step-by-step program to engage readers in deliberate practice to improve
clinical effectiveness across the therapists’ entire career span, from
beginning training for graduate students to continuing education for
licensed and advanced clinicians.

Tony Rousmaniere is on the clinical faculty at the University of

Washington, Seattle where he also maintains a private practice.
This page intentionally left blank
DELIBERATE PRACTICE FOR
PSYCHOTHERAPISTS
A Guide to Improving
Clinical Effectiveness

Tony Rousmaniere
First published 2017
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
The right of Tony Rousmaniere to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN: 978-1-138-20318-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-20320-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-47225-6 (ebk)
Typeset in ITC Legacy Serif and Bodoni
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY SUPERVISORS,
FROM GRADUATE SCHOOL TO THE PRESENT,
WHO HAVE TAUGHT ME HOW TO LEARN WITH COURAGE,
PATIENCE, AND SELF-COMPASSION.
I STAND ON THEIR SHOULDERS.
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS

Prologue ix
Acknowledgments xvi

PART I: THE PATH TO DELIBERATE PRACTICE 1

1 The Path to Competence 3

2 The Path to Expertise 26
3 The Experiment, Phase 1: Deliberate Practice 32
4 The Experiment, Phase 2: Solitary Deliberate Practice 44

PART II: THE SCIENCE OF EXPERTISE: LEARNING

FROM OTHER FIELDS 55

5 Expertise in Medicine: Focus on Clinical Outcomes 57

6 Expertise in Performing Arts: Focus on Skills 73
7 Expertise in Difficult Situations: Experience Refined by
Feedback 86
8 Expertise in Spiritual Practices: Addressing Experiential
Avoidance 96

vii
 CONTENTS

PART III: DEVELOPING YOUR OWN DELIBERATE

PRACTICE ROUTINE 111

9 The Principles of Practice 113

10 Deliberate Practice Exercises for Basic Skills 125
11 Deliberate Practice Exercises for Specific Models 143

PART IV: SUSTAINING DELIBERATE PRACTICE 155

12 The Inner Game: Self-Regulation, Grit, and

Harmonious Passion 157
13 Advice for Supervisees: Finding Your Path to Expertise 165
14 Advice for Supervisors: Integrating Deliberate Practice into
Supervision 173
15 Advice for Mid- and Later Career: Lifelong Learning 180
16 Challenges to Deliberate Practice 186
17 Looking Forward 190

Epilogue 193
Appendix: Videotaping Psychotherapy 195
References 198
Index 214

viii
PROLOGUE

Me (as a psychologist trainee): I don’t think therapy is helping Karen.

My supervisor: What’s wrong?
Me: I don’t know. We’ve got a great therapeutic relationship. But she’s
not getting better.
Supervisor: How so?
Me: Her drug use is getting worse. She’s lost her job. Her boyfriend left.
I’m worried about her four-year-old son. I’ve tried working dynamically
in the relationship, cognitive reframing, and behavioral interventions.
Nothing seems to work.
Supervisor: How about we talk with our social workers about getting
financial and caretaking support for her son?
Me: Great, but how do I help her more?

Two weeks later my client1 died from a drug overdose. Her son was
shipped off to foster care.
This tragedy was the capstone of a long series of therapeutic
disappointments. I, like all therapists (whether they admit it or not), was
all too familiar with clients stalling, dropping out of therapy, and even
deteriorating. However, my client’s death and her son’s abandonment
brought painful clarity to the harsh consequences of clinical failure. I had
become a therapist because I wanted to help my clients, not watch them die.
This event sparked a crisis within me—one that I believe is shared by
therapists around the world, across all the treatment models: How do I
become a more effective therapist?
ix
 PROLOGUE

Luckily I wasn’t alone in my quest. Although I didn’t know it at the

time, prominent psychotherapy researchers were wrestling with the same
dilemma: the urgent need for more effective methods of psychotherapy
training. At the same time that I had my crisis, these researchers were on
the cusp of discovering a promising path to clinical excellence: deliberate
practice.
This book proposes that the science of expertise, backed by decades of
research on how experts in a wide range of other professions—from sports
to math, medicine, and the arts—may help psychotherapists achieve
skill mastery. This mountain of research can be distilled into two major
findings. First the good news: expert performance is achievable by most
people, with effort and perseverance. Now the bad news: achieving expert
performance isn’t easy. In fact, it’s hard.

WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT: DELIBERATE PRACTICE

The idea of deliberate practice has its origins in a classic study by K. Anders
Ericsson and colleagues (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer, 1993).
They were curious about what methods top-performing professional
musicians used to achieve expert performance. To examine this, they
went to a famous music conservatory in Germany and asked the students
to complete a survey regarding their training activities. Ericsson and
colleagues hoped to discover which training activities were associated
with the very best musicians.
When they compiled the data, only one variable reliably predicted
the skill level of the musicians: the amount of time the students had
spent practicing their instrument alone. Further investigation revealed
that the students were not just simply practicing their instruments but
were primarily working on goals to improve particular aspects of their
performance identified during the weekly meeting with their master
teachers. The students were engaging in a comprehensive series of
activities designed to maximize skill acquisition. According to Ericsson
(2006), these activities are:

1) Observing their own work.

2) Getting expert feedback.
3) Setting small incremental learning goals just beyond the performer’s
ability.
x
 PROLOGUE

4) Engaging in repetitive behavioral rehearsal of specific skills.

5) Continuously assessing performance.

They termed this process deliberate practice. Notably, all of the top
performers at the music conservatory had accumulated a minimum of
thousands of hours of solitary deliberate practice. This finding led to the
widely known “10,000 hour rule” popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in
his 2008 book Outliers, although the actual number of hours required for
expertise varies by field and by individual (Ericsson & Pool, 2016). The
widespread misunderstanding that 10,000 hours of work performance
leads to expertise is not accurate: 10,000 hours of solitary deliberate practice
was found to be the minimum for expertise. As I discuss in Chapter 4,
this misunderstanding holds considerable significance for the field
of psychotherapy, where hours of work experience with clients has
traditionally been used as a measure of proficiency.
Many professions rely on solitary deliberate practice to improve
performance. When a basketball player is told by his coach that he
needs to sharpen his 3-point shots and then arrives an hour early every
day to practice his shots until he improves, that’s solitary deliberate
practice. When a chess player loses a tournament, identifies a specific
opening sequence that would have helped him, and then spends hours
repetitively trying out that sequence against a computer chess training
program, that’s solitary deliberate practice. When a surgeon learning a
new laparoscopic procedure spends hours repetitively practicing on a
simulator that provides continuous feedback on his accuracy, that’s
solitary deliberate practice.
What about psychotherapists? While professional dancers, musicians,
athletes, orators, etc. would never expect to improve their performance
without investing many, many hours in solitary deliberate practice, most
psychotherapists will get through years of training, licensure, etc. without
having spent even a full hour in solitary deliberate practice. I sure didn’t,
and I had never met a therapist who did.
It’s not because we are lazy or don’t care. The vast majority of us care
deeply about helping our clients and are willing to invest substantial time
and money in becoming better therapists. However, unlike most other
professions, our field simply does not have a model for how to use solitary
deliberate practice to improve our work.

xi
 PROLOGUE

Why don’t we have a model for solitary deliberate practice for

psychotherapy? Certainly our work is as challenging, complex, and high
stakes as any of the fields listed above. We help our clients with an incredibly
diverse range of challenges (anxiety, depression, relationships, work
performance, etc.), often with high-stakes consequences (ending a marriage
or helping a client not take their own life) and under constrained work
conditions (managed care, limited financial resources, etc.). Furthermore,
we have to do all this while maintaining eye-to-eye, empathic attunement
with clients who are often in severe emotional distress or caught in cycles of
self-destructive behaviors. Doesn’t sound like an easy job to excel at, does it?
In my experience, psychotherapy is actually a very hard job to excel at.
In fact, throughout my training, I found that while I was good at helping
some clients, a large amount of my caseload was simply not improving.
Despite doing everything I was supposed to do—including supervision,
studying theory, attending workshops—I wasn’t helping a full 50% of my
clients. This caused me years of growing frustration.
Then one day I had a fateful interview with Scott Miller, the first
psychologist to call for the use of deliberate practice in psychotherapy.
This interview led me to Scott’s other work (Miller, Hubble, Chow, &
Seidel, 2013; Miller, Hubble & Duncan, 2007) and the work of other
prominent psychologists (Tracey, Wampold, Lichtenberg, & Goodyear,
2014) who had been studying the potential use of deliberate practice for
psychotherapy. Building on their research, I started experimenting with
using deliberate practice for myself and my trainees.
From this experience, I have developed a routine for using deliberate
practice for psychotherapy training. The main goal of this routine is to
help me and my trainees improve our effectiveness by using deliberate
practice to learn from our clinical nonimprovers and failures, the
“other 50%” of our cases. This routine aims to help us break through a
competency plateau by engaging in a never-ending gradual improvement
process towards psychotherapy expertise.
My routine uses these five deliberate practice processes:

1) Observing our own work via videotape.

2) Getting expert feedback from a coach or consultant.
3) Setting small incremental learning goals just beyond our ability.
4) Repetitive behavioral rehearsal of specific skills.
5) Continuously assessing our performance via client-reported outcome.
xii
 PROLOGUE

These processes are repeated throughout a career, beginning with graduate

school and continuing through licensure into middle and later career.
Additionally, my routine includes learning principles gleaned from how
other fields (e.g., medicine, performing arts, and emergency management)
use deliberate practice:

• We use the clinical outcomes of our individual clients as the most

valid empirical basis for our work (see Chapter 5).
• We learn best by focusing on specific incremental skills just
beyond our current ability and repetitively practicing those skills
(see Chapter 6).
• We maximize learning from our clinical experience, particularly
our clinical failures, by reviewing our own work via videotape (see
Chapter 7).
• We address our own experiential avoidance by developing
emotional self-awareness and nonreactivity (see Chapter 8).

HOW IS THIS BOOK DIFFERENT?

In the decades since Ericsson and colleagues’ first study of musicians,

the body of research on deliberate practice has grown rapidly. Deliberate
practice is now a well-researched field. The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise
and Expert Performance has over 40 chapters and 900 pages exploring how
a vast range of fields use deliberate practice (Ericsson, Charness, Feltovich,
& Hoffman, 2006). I have recently had the good fortune to edit a volume
with prominent colleagues on how to use deliberate practice specifically
for psychotherapy (Rousmaniere, Goodyear, Miller, & Wampold, in press).
This book is different from the other literature on deliberate practice in
one main way: it is personal. Although I cite research literature, I did not
write this book from an academic perspective. Rather, it is a highly personal
narrative of the arc of my training from beginner trainee to licensed clinician
and beyond, throughout which I faced significant clinical challenges that
ultimately led me to find deliberate practice. I am including my personal
story because I know the path I took in my clinical training was not unique.
Rather, the challenges, both professional and personal, that I experienced
will sound familiar to many therapists. Facing these challenges together
with open eyes and a compassionate heart will provide a strong foundation
for the hard road ahead: the journey to expertise.
xiii
 PROLOGUE

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED

This book is divided into four parts.

Part I: The Path to Deliberate Practice tells the story of the arc of
my professional development, starting with my initial experiences and
including the clinical challenges and failures that led me to discover and
use deliberate practice.
Part II: The Science of Expertise: Learning from Other Fields delves
deeper into the science and research on deliberate practice, including
exploring (a) the history and evolution of deliberate practice, (b) what we
can learn from how other fields use deliberate practice, and (c) empirically
based components of expertise.
Part III: Developing Your Own Deliberate Practice Routine aims to
help you start experimenting with deliberate practice. To get you started,
I describe the deliberate practice principles and exercises I have used for
clinical training: what I practice and how I practice. Because the processes
of deliberate practice are transtheoretical, these exercises can be used
to enhance the effectiveness of clinical practice and supervision in any
field of mental health (e.g., clinical psychology, counseling, marriage
and family therapy, etc.) and to benefit any therapeutic modality (e.g.,
cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy, etc.).
Part IV: Sustaining Deliberate Practice discusses key empirically
based methods that therapists can use to strengthen and support their
deliberate practice. Because solitary deliberate practice is difficult, Part IV
focuses on strategies and techniques to make solitary deliberate practice
more viable, such as developing grit, tips for trainees seeking a mentor,
and strategies for integrating deliberate practice into supervision. This
part provides guidance for clinicians at all career stages, from trainees to
seasoned, licensed therapists in independent practice.

WHAT THIS BOOK IS NOT ABOUT

This book does not contain clinical instruction from a master

psychotherapist. I cannot write that book since I have not achieved
clinical mastery. I can say this with confidence because I have collected
my outcome data for the past half-decade. My outcomes are good but
not superb; my dropout rate is decent but not zero; my deterioration
rate is about average for the field. I have had many clients who report

xiv
 PROLOGUE

substantial life-change improvements. But I have also had some who left
disappointed after a few sessions or, even worse, left after many sessions
with no positive change to show for their investment of time and money.
If this is disappointing to you—if you are looking for guidance or
clinical wisdom from a master psychotherapist—there are many other
books available for this purpose.2 However, while I am not a master
psychotherapist, I am passionate about becoming one, which has led
me on a never-ending quest to find more effective clinical training
methods. That is what this book is about: learning how to become an expert
psychotherapist. This process starts by acknowledging our clinical failures
(the “other 50%”), dropping our assumptions about what constitutes
effective psychotherapy training, and reexamining the whole endeavor of
psychotherapy skill acquisition from the ground up.
Let’s begin.

NOTES

1 All psychotherapy cases presented in this book have been modified to preserve
the confidentiality of the clients.
2 It is worth noting, however, that the claims of clinical expertise in these volumes
are usually not based on actual outcome data, but instead on the authors’ decades
of experience as therapists, or the quality of their writing. These claims are dubious.
Several large studies have recently suggested that years of clinical experience is not in
itself a reliable indicator of clinical expertise (Goldberg et al., 2016; Tracey et al., 2014).
I do not mean this as a criticism of these authors; not collecting or reporting outcome
data is the norm in our field. As I suggest in Chapter 5, this is a problem that needs to
be addressed if our field is to achieve substantial improvement in effectiveness.

xv
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book and my personal journey to deliberate practice have been

possible only because of the generous guidance and encouragement I have
been fortunate to receive from others. Scott Miller is at the top of this list.
Scott is a true visionary and never content with the status quo. Always
a decade ahead of the rest of the field, Scott was the first psychologist
to see how the science of expertise could benefit psychotherapy. Scott’s
team at the International Center for Clinical Excellence is leading the
effort to bring deliberate practice to mental health. His fearless pursuit
of improvement and client-centered focus have been an inspiration to me
throughout my career and have reached through me to benefit every one
of my clients.
In addition to Scott, I have had the great fortune to work with Rodney
Goodyear and Bruce Wampold on an edited volume on deliberate
practice in psychotherapy. From them I have learned not only a lot about
deliberate practice but also how to approach psychotherapy outcome and
supervision research more scientifically. I am blessed to have the generous
mentorship of such talented senior psychologists.
This book is based on ideas originally developed by K. Anders Ericsson
in the early 1990s and on the large body of writing he produced over the
following decades. Dr. Ericsson provided valuable advice for this book,
and for that I am especially grateful. Among other topics, Dr. Ericsson
pointed out new developments in the definition of different forms of
practice that delineate between naïve practice, purposeful practice, and
deliberate practice (see Chapter 16). A thorough discussion of these
xvi
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

alternate definitions is beyond the scope of this book; readers are referred
to Ericsson and Pool (2016) for an in-depth review of these topics.
William McGaghie also provided important assistance for this
project. As we will review in Chapter 5, Dr. McGaghie is one of the
leading proponents of using deliberate practice for the reform of medical
training. His pioneering work in medicine is a model of what we can
hopefully achieve in psychotherapy over the next few decades. I am also
indebted to Daryl Chow for inspiration and advice on this topic. Daryl
ran the first empirical study on deliberate practice and psychotherapy,
which was instrumental in opening my eyes to the potential in this area.
Additionally, I am thankful to Noa Kageyama for his generous assistance
and encouragement.
Allan Abbass, Patricia Coughlin, and Jon Frederickson helped this
project in many ways. First, they are case examples of psychotherapists
who strive tirelessly to improve their clinical skills and openly discuss
their outcomes. Additionally, all were willing to discuss their personal
training methods with me. Allan and Jon provide invaluable clinical
supervision that greatly benefits my clinical work. Just as important,
Patricia provided my first experience of truly top-notch psychotherapy.
Jon was the first psychotherapist to show me how to use the principles of
deliberate practice for psychotherapy supervision. I am deeply indebted
to all three.
This book is based on the intersection of two major domains of
research: psychotherapy outcomes and clinical supervision. I am very
fortunate to have benefited from encouragement and mentoring by
psychotherapy researchers in both domains. Jason Whipple, a researcher
in routine outcome monitoring, provided important advice on every
section of this book. Michael Ellis and Ed Watkins, who produced some
of the key clinical supervision literature that serve as the foundation for
this book, generously provided valuable guidance throughout my career,
as well as encouragement for this project.
I am also indebted to the therapists who experimented with the
exercises in this book, including the trainees I have supervised and the
licensed therapists who have attended my classes on deliberate practice.
Their curiosity and courage have been an inspiration. Much of the
information in Parts III and IV of this book was gleaned from their
experiences experimenting with deliberate practice.

xvii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

George Zimmar, my publisher at Routledge, saw the potential in an

early draft of this book and provided valuable advice throughout the
publishing process. Len Sperry, Nicholas Ladany, and an anonymous
reviewer provided encouragement and helpful suggestions for improving
the text. Joanne Freeman offered excellent editorial advice for every part
of the book. Nat Kuhn identified key problems in earlier drafts of the
book and helped me get back on track. Chip Cooper and Simon Goldberg
raised questions about the text that helped me clarify important points.
Jennifer Callahan and her two anonymous graduate students provided
insightful advice and encouragement. Dawn Preston and Alaina
Christensen contributed valuable editing and proofing of the book.
At the heart of this book is my family. My wife, Laura Prugh, is my
inspiring model of a successful scientist and has taught me how to
approach research and data in a level-headed way. More than anyone, my
lively and wonderful four-year-old daughter, Evelyn, lights up my days
and keeps me humble by generously providing moment-to-moment
feedback on my fathering skills.
Most of all, this book is founded on the work of my clients. Their
courage, effort, persistence, and feedback have taught me more about
psychotherapy than anything else. To them I am endlessly grateful.

xviii
Part I

The Path to Deliberate Practice

Other documents randomly have
different content
with me, I laid down my rod, cut a good-sized stick, and proceeded
to dislodge her. As soon as I was within six or seven feet of the
place, she sprang straight at my face over the dogs' heads. Had I
not struck her in mid-air as she leaped at me, I should probably
have received a severe wound. As it was, she fell with her back half
broken among the dogs, who with my assistance dispatched her. I
never saw an animal fight so desperately, or one which was so
difficult to kill. If a tame cat has nine lives, a wild cat must have a
dozen. Sometimes one of these animals will take up its residence at
no great distance from a house, and, entering the hen-roosts and
outbuildings, will carry off fowls in the most audacious manner, or
even lambs. Like other vermin, the wild cat haunts the shores of
lakes and rivers, and it is therefore easy to know where to set a trap
for them. Having caught and killed one of the colony, the rest of
them are sure to be taken if the body of their slain relative is left in
the same place not far from their usual hunting-ground and
surrounded with traps, as every wild cat passing that way will to a
certainty come to it."

The wild cat ranges from the far north of Scotland, across Europe
and Northern Asia, to the northern slopes of the Himalaya. It has
always been known as one of the fiercest and wildest of the cats,
large or small. The continual ill-temper of these creatures is
remarkable. In the experience of the keepers of menageries there is
no other so intractably savage. One presented to the Zoological
Gardens by Lord Lilford some eight years ago still snarls and spits at
any one who comes near it, even the keeper.

By permission of Percy Leigh Pemberton, Esq.

 EUROPEAN WILD CAT.
The British representative of this species is
rapidly becoming extinct. The specimen whose
portrait is given here was caught in Argyllshire.

The food of the wild cat is grouse, mountain-hares, rabbits, small

birds, and probably fish caught in the shallow waters when chance
offers. It is wholly nocturnal; consequently no one ever sees it
hunting for prey. Though it has long been confined to the north and
north-west of Scotland, it is by no means on the verge of extinction.
The deer-forests are saving it to some extent, as they did the golden
eagle. Grouse and hares are rather in the way when deer are being
stalked; consequently the wild cat and the eagle are not trapped or
shot. The limits of its present fastnesses were recently fixed by
careful Scotch naturalists at the line of the Caledonian Canal. Mr.
Harvie Brown, in 1880, said that it only survived in Scotland north of
a line running from Oban to the junction of the three counties of
Perth, Forfar, and Aberdeen, and thence through Banffshire to
Inverness. But the conclusion of a writer in the Edinburgh Review of
July, 1898, in a very interesting article on the survival of British
mammals, has been happily contradicted. He believed that it only
survived in the deer-forests of Inverness and Sutherlandshire. The
wild cats shown in the illustrations of these pages were caught a
year later as far south as Argyllshire. The father and two kittens
were all secured, practically unhurt, and purchased by Mr. Percy
Leigh Pemberton for his collection of British mammals at Ashford, in
Kent. This gentleman has had great success in preserving his wild
cats. They, as well as others—martens, polecats, and other small
carnivora—are fed on fresh wild rabbits killed in a warren near;
consequently they are in splendid condition. The old "tom" wild cat,
snarling with characteristic ill-humour, was well supported by the
wild and savage little kittens, which exhibited all the family temper.
Shortly before the capture of these wild cats another family were
trapped in Aberdeenshire and brought to the Zoological Gardens.
Four kittens, beautiful little savages, with bright green eyes, and
uninjured, were safely taken to Regent's Park. But the quarters given
them were very small and cold, and they all died. Two other full-
grown wild cats brought there a few years earlier were so dreadfully
injured by the abominable steel traps in which they were caught that
they both died of blood-poisoning.

By permission of Percy Leigh Pemberton, Esq.

SCOTCH WILD CATS.
These wild cats, the property of Mr. P. Leigh
Pemberton, though regularly fed and well
treated, show their natural bad-temper in their
faces.

The real wild cats differ in their markings on the body, some being
more clearly striped, while others are only brindled. But they are all
alike in the squareness and thickness of head and body, and in the
short tail, ringed with black, and growing larger at the tip, which
ends off like a shaving-brush.

It may well be asked, Which of the many species of wild cats

mentioned above is the ancestor of our domestic cats? Probably
different species in different countries. The African Kaffir cat, the
Indian leopard-cat, the rusty-spotted cat of India, and the European
wild cat all breed with tame cats. It is therefore probable that the
spotted, striped, and brindled varieties of tame cats are descended
from wild species which had those markings. The so-called red tame
cats are doubtless descended from the tiger-coloured wild cats. But
it is a curious fact that, though the spotted grey-tabby wild varieties
are the least common, that colour is most frequent in the tame
species.
 THE LYNXES.

In the Lynxes we seem to have a less specially cat-like form. They are
short-tailed, high in the leg, and broad-faced. Less active than the
leopards and tiger-cats, and able to live either in very hot or very
cold countries, they are found from the Persian deserts to the far
north of Siberia and Canada.

The Caracal is a southern, hot-country lynx. It has a longer tail than

the others, but the same tufted ears. It seems a link between the
lynxes and the jungle-cats. It is found in India, Palestine, Persia, and
Mesopotamia. In India it was trained, like the cheeta, to catch birds,
gazelles, and hares. The Common Lynx is probably the same animal,
whether found in Norway, Russia, the Carpathians, Turkestan, China,
or Tibet. The Canadian Lynx is also very probably the same, with local
differences of colour. The Northern Lynx is the largest feline animal
left in Europe, and kills sheep and goats equally with hares and
squirrels. The beautiful fur, of pale cinnamon and light grey, is much
admired. In some southern districts of America we have the Red
Lynx, or so-called "wild cat," which is distinct from the lynx of
Canada. The Mediterranean or Spanish Lynx seems likewise entitled to
rank as a distinct species.

Of the lynxes the Caracals are perhaps the most interesting, from
their capacity for domestication. They are found in Africa in the open
desert country, whereas the Serval is found in the thick bush. In
Africa it is believed to be the most savage and untamable of the
Cats. That is probably because the Negro and the Kaffir never
possessed the art of training animals, from the elephant downwards.
In India the caracal's natural prey are the fawns of deer and
antelope, pea-fowl, hares, and floricans. The caracal is the quickest
with its feet of any of the Cats. One of its best-known feats is to
spring up and catch birds passing over on the wing at a height of six
or eight feet from the ground. A writer, in the Naturalist's Library,
notes that, besides being tamed to catch deer, pea-fowl, and cranes,
the caracal was used in "pigeon matches." Two caracals were backed
one against the other to kill pigeons. The birds were fed on the
ground, and the caracals suddenly let loose among them, to strike
down as many as each could before the birds escaped. Each would
sometimes strike down with its fore paws ten or a dozen pigeons.
"Caracal" means in Turkish "Black Ear," in allusion to the colour of
the animal's organ of hearing.

Photo by Ottomar Anschütz] [Berlin.

LYNX.
This animal is a uniformly coloured specie
common to India and Africa.

The Common Lynx is a thick-set animal, high in the leg, with a square
head and very strong paws and forearms. It is found across the
whole northern region of Europe and Asia. Although never known in
Britain in historic times, it is still occasionally seen in parts of the
Alps and in the Carpathians; it is also common in the Caucasus. It is
mainly a forest animal, and very largely nocturnal; therefore it is
seldom seen, and not often hunted. If any enemy approaches, the
lynx lies perfectly still on some branch or rock, and generally
succeeds in avoiding notice. The lynx is extremely active; it can leap
great distances, and makes its attack usually in that way. When
travelling, it trots or gallops in a very dog-like fashion. Where sheep
graze at large on mountains, as in the Balkans and in Greece, the
lynx is a great enemy of the flocks. In Norway, where the animal is
now very rare, there is a tradition that it is more mischievous than
the wolf, and a high price is set on its head.
 Photo by A. S. Rudland & Sons.
EUROPEAN LYNX.
The largest of the cat tribe left in
Europe.

In Siberia and North Russia most of the lynx-skins taken are sold to
the Chinese. The lynx-skins brought to London are mainly those of
the Canadian species. The fur is dyed, and used for the busbies of
the officers in our hussar regiments. These skins vary much in
colour, and in length and quality of fur. The price varies
correspondingly. The Canadian lynx lives mainly on the wood-hares
and on the wood-grouse of the North American forests. The flesh of
the lynx is said to be good and tender.

Brehm says of the Siberian lynx: "It is a forest animal in the strictest
sense of the word. But in Siberia it occurs only singly, and is rarely
captured. Its true home is in the thickest parts in the interior of the
woods, and these it probably never leaves except when scarcity of
food or the calls of love tempt it to wander to the outskirts. Both
immigrants and natives hold the hunting of the lynx in high esteem.
This proud cat's activity, caution and agility, and powers of defence
arouse the enthusiasm of every sportsman, and both skin and flesh
are valued, the latter not only by the Mongolian tribes, but also by
the Russian hunters. The lynx is seldom captured in fall-traps; he
often renders them useless by walking along the beam and stepping
on the lever, and he usually leaps over the spring-traps in his path.
So only the rifle and dogs are left."
 By permission of Mr. S. B. Gundy] [Toronto.
CANADIAN LYNX.
Great numbers of these are trapped every year
for the sake of their fur.

The Red Lynx is a small American variety, the coat of which turns
tawny in summer, when it much resembles a large cat. It is called in
some parts of the United States the Mountain-cat. This lynx is 30
inches long in the body, with a tail 6 inches long. It is found on the
eastern or Atlantic side of the continent, and by no means shuns the
neighbourhood of settlements.

Photo by Ottomar Anschütz, Berlin.

WOLF FROM CENTRAL EUROPE.
The last persons recorded as killed
by these animals were an artist and
 his wife travelling in Hungary.

Photo by Ottomar Anschütz]

[Berlin.
CHEETAS.
Cheetas can be distinguished at a
glance from ordinary leopards by the
solid black spots on the back instead
of the "rosettes."

THE CHEETA.

THE NON-RETRACTILE-CLAWED CAT.

The Cheeta, or Hunting-leopard, is the only example of this particular

group, though there was an extinct form, whose remains are found
in the Siwalik Hills, in the north of India. It is a very widely dispersed
animal, found in Persia, Turkestan, and the countries east of the
Caspian, and in India so far as the lower part of the centre of the
peninsula. It is also common in Africa, where until recent years it
was found in Cape Colony and Natal. Now it is banished to the
Kalahari Desert, the Northern Transvaal, and Bechuanaland.
 Photo by York & Son]
[Notting Hill.
A CHEETA
HOODED.
The cheeta is not unhooded until
fairly near his quarry, when he is
given a sight of the game, and a
splendid race ensues.

The cheeta is more dog-like than any other cat. It stands high on
the leg, and has a short, rounded head. Its fur is short and rather
woolly, its feet rounded, and its claws, instead of slipping back into
sheaths like a lion's, are only partly retractile.

Mr. Lockwood Kipling gives the following account of the cheeta and
its keepers: "The only point where real skill comes into play in
dealing with the hunting-leopard is in catching the adult animal
when it has already learnt the swift, bounding onset, its one
accomplishment. The young cheeta is not worth catching, for it has
not yet learnt its trade, nor can it be taught in captivity.... There are
certain trees where these great dog-cats (for they have some oddly
canine characteristics) come to play and whet their claws. The
hunters find such a tree, and arrange nooses of deer-sinew round it,
and wait the event. The animal comes and is caught by the leg, and
it is at this point that the trouble begins. It is no small achievement
for two or three naked, ill-fed men to secure so fierce a capture and
carry it home tied on a cart. Then his training begins. He is tied in all
directions, principally from a thick rope round his loins, while a hood
fitted over his head effectually blinds him. He is fastened on a strong
cot-bedstead, and the keepers and their wives and families reduce
him to submission by starving him and keeping him awake. His head
is made to face the village street, and for an hour at a time, several
times a day, his keepers make pretended rushes at him, and wave
clothes, staves, and other articles in his face. He is talked to
continually, and the women's tongues are believed to be the most
effective of things to keep him awake. No created being could
withstand the effects of hunger, want of sleep, and feminine
scolding; and the poor cheeta becomes piteously, abjectly tame. He
is taken out for a walk occasionally—if a slow crawl between four
attendants, all holding hard, can be called a walk—and his
promenades are always through the crowded streets and bazaars,
where the keepers' friends are to be found; but the people are
rather pleased than otherwise to see the raja's cheetas amongst
them." Later, when the creature is tamed, "the cheeta's bedstead is
like that of the keeper, and leopard and man are often curled up
under the same blanket! When his bedfellow is restless, the keeper
lazily stretches out an arm from his end of the cot and dangles a
tassel over the animal's head, which seems to soothe him. In the
early morning I have seen a cheeta sitting up on his couch, a red
blanket half covering him, and his tasselled red hood awry, looking
exactly like an elderly gentleman in a nightcap, as he yawns with the
irresolute air of one who is in doubt whether to rise or to turn in for
another nap."

This charming and accurate description shows the cheeta at home.

In the field he is quite another creature. He is driven as near as
possible to the game, and then unhooded and given a sight of them.
Sir Samuel Baker thus describes a hunt in which a cheeta was used:
"The chase began after the right-hand buck, which had a start of
about 110 yards. It was a magnificent sight to see the extraordinary
speed of pursuer and pursued. The buck flew over the level surface,
followed by the cheeta, which was laying out at full stretch, with its
long, thick tail brandishing in the air. They had run 200 yards, when
the keeper gave the word, and away we went as fast as our horses
could carry us. The horses could go over this clear ground, where no
danger of a fall seemed possible. I never saw anything to equal the
speed of the buck and the cheeta; we were literally nowhere,
although we were going as hard as horseflesh could carry us; but we
had a glorious view. The cheeta was gaining in the course, while the
buck was exerting every muscle for life or death in its last race.
Presently, after a course of about a quarter of a mile, the buck
doubled like a hare, and the cheeta lost ground as it shot ahead,
instead of turning quickly, being only about thirty yards in rear of the
buck. Recovering itself, it turned on extra steam, and the race
appeared to recommence at increased speed. The cheeta was
determined to win, and at this moment the buck made another
double in the hope of shaking off its terrible pursuer; but this time
the cheeta ran cunning, and was aware of the former game. It
turned as sharply as the buck. Gathering itself together for a final
effort, it shot forward like an arrow, picked up the distance which
remained between them, and in a cloud of dust we could for one
moment distinguish two forms. The next instant the buck was on its
back, and the cheeta's fangs were fixed like an iron vice in its throat.
The course run was about 600 yards, and it was worth a special
voyage to India to see that hunt."

Photo by Ottomar Anschütz] [Berlin.

A CHEETA ON THE LOOK-OUT.
Cheetas are common to Africa and India. By the
native princes of the latter country they are
 much used for taking antelope and other game.

THE DOMESTIC CAT.

BY LOUIS WAIN.

Of the domestication of the cat we know very little, but it is recorded

that a tribe of cats was trained to retrieve—i.e. to fetch and carry
game. In our own time I have seen many cats fetch and carry corks
and newspapers, and on one occasion pounce upon a small roach at
the end of a line and place it at its owner's feet. Gamekeepers whom
I have known agree that, for cunning, craftiness, and tenacity in
attaining an object, the semi-wild cat of the woods shows far
superior intelligence to the rest of the woodland denizens. It is quite
a usual thing to hear of farm cats entering upon a snake-hunting
expedition with the greatest glee, and showing remarkable readiness
in pitching upon their quarry and pinning it down until secured.
These farm cats are quite a race by themselves. Of decided sporting
proclivities, they roam the countryside with considerable fierceness,
and yet revert to the domesticity of the farmhouse fireside as though
innocent of roving instincts. They are spasmodic to a degree in their
mode of life, and apparently work out one mood before entering
upon another. It will be remembered that this spasmodic tendency—
the true feline independence, by-the-bye—is and has been
characteristic of the cat throughout its history, and any one who has
tried to overcome it has met with failure.

Photo by T. Fall]
WHITE [Baker Street.
SHORT-HAIRED.
 Most white cats are not
albinoes—that is to say, they
have ordinarily coloured and
not red eyes.

Photo by T. Fall] [Baker Street.

LONG-HAIRED WHITE.
White cats with blue eyes are generally
deaf, or at all events hard of hearing.

Watch your own cat, and you will see that he will change his
sleeping-quarters periodically; and if he can find a newspaper
conveniently placed, he will prefer it to lie upon, before anything
perhaps, except a cane-bottomed chair, to which all cats are very
partial. If you keep a number of cats, as I do, you will find that they
are very imitative, and what one gets in the habit of doing they will
all do in time: for instance, one of my cats took to sitting with his
front paws inside my tall hat and his body outside, and this has
become a catty fashion in the family, whether the object be a hat,
cap, bonnet, small basket, box, or tin. If by chance one of the cats is
attacked by a dog, a peculiar cry from the aggrieved animal will
immediately awaken the others out of their lethargy or sleep, and
bring them fiercely to the rescue. They are, too, particularly kind and
nice to the old cat, and are tolerant only of strange baby kittens and
very old cats in the garden as long as they do not interfere with the
"catty" subject. The same quality obtains in Spain or Portugal, where
a race of scavenging cats exists, which go about in droves or
families, and are equal to climbing straight walls, big trees,
chimneys, and mountain-sides. Long, lanky, and thin, they are built
more on the lines of a greyhound than the ordinary cat, and are
more easily trained in tricks than home cats.

Photo by Fratelli Alinari,

Florence.

MACKEREL-MARKED
TABBY.
Tabbies are probably the
best known and the
commonest cats in
England.

Photo by L.
Medland, F.Z.S.,
North Finchley.

CAT CARRYING
KITTEN.
A unique
photograph,
showing the way in
which the cat carries
its young.
 Photo by E. Landor,
Ealing.

BLUE LONG-
HAIRED, OR
PERSIAN.
Persian or long-
haired cats are of
various colours; this
is one of the least
common.

Photo by E. Landor, Ealing.

SMOKE AND BLUE LONG-HAIRED.
Two pretty and valuable Persian
kittens.
 By permission of Lady
Alexander.
ORANGE TABBY.
A champion winner of 90 first
prizes.

Photo by E. Landor,
Ealing.

LONG-HAIRED
TABBY.
A pretty pose.

Photo by E. Landor,
Ealing.

SILVER PERSIAN.
A handsome specimen.
 Photo by E. Landor,
Ealing.

SMOKE LONG-
HAIRED, OR
PERSIAN.
A new breed.

The Tortoiseshell has long been looked upon as the national cat of
Spain, and in fact that country is overrun with the breed, ranging
from a dense black and brown to lighter shades of orange-brown
and white. The pure tortoiseshell might be called a black and tan,
with no white, streaked like a tortoiseshell comb if possible, and with
wonderful amber eyes. It is characteristic of their intelligence that
they will invariably find their way home, and will even bring that
mysterious instinct to bear which guides them back long distances to
the place of their birth; and, with regard to this cat, the stories of
almost impossible journeys made are not one bit exaggerated. The
tom-cats of this breed are very rare in England; I myself have only
known of the existence of six in fifteen years, and of these but three
are recorded in the catalogues of our cat shows.

SHORT-HAIRED BLUE.
 This champion cat belongs to
Lady Alexander, by whose kind
permission it is here
reproduced.

The Black Cat has many of the characteristics of the tortoiseshell, but
is essentially a town cat, and is wont to dream his life away in shady
corners, in underground cellars, in theatres, and in all places where
he can, in fact, retire to monastic quiet. The black cat of St. Clement
Danes Church was one of the remarkable cats of London. It was his
wont to climb on to the top of the organ-pipes and enjoy an
occasional musical concert alone. A christening or a wedding was his
pride; and many people can vouch for a lucky wedding who had the
good-fortune to be patronised by the black cat of St. Clement Danes,
which walked solemnly down the aisle of the church in front of the
happy couples.

My old pet Peter was a black-and-white cat, and, like most of his
kind, was one of the most remarkable cats for intelligence I have
ever known. A recital of his accomplishments would, however, have
very few believers—a fact I find existing in regard to all really
intelligent cats. There are so many cats of an opposite character, and
people will rarely take more than a momentary trouble to win the
finer nature of an animal into existence. Suffice it to say, that Peter
would lie and die, sit up with spectacles on his nose and with a post-
card between his paws—a trick I have taught many people's cats to
do. He would also mew silent meows when bid, and wait at the door
for my home-coming. For a long time, too, it was customary to hear
weird footfalls at night outside the bedroom doors, and visitors to
the house were a little more superstitious as to their cause than we
were ourselves. We set a watch upon the supposed ghost, but
sudden opening of the doors discovered only the mystic form of
Peter sitting purring on the stairs. He was, however, ultimately
caught in the act of lifting the corner of the door-rug and letting it
fall back in its place, and he had grown quite expert in his method of
raising and dropping it at regular intervals until he heard that his
signals had produced the required effect, and the door was opened
to admit him.

Photo by T. Fall] [Baker Street.

SILVER TABBY.
A beautiful variety of the typical
British cat.

White Cats I might call musical cats, for it is quite characteristic of

the albinoes that noises rarely startle them out of their simpering,
loving moods. The scraping of a violin, which will scare an ordinary
cat out of its senses, or the thumping of a piano, which would
terrorise even strong-nerved cats, would only incite a white cat to a
happier mood. Certainly all white cats are somewhat deaf, or lack
acute quality of senses; but this failing rather softens the feline
nature than becomes dominant as a weakness.

Photo by E. Landor] [Ealing.

SHORT-HAIRED TABBY.
This is perhaps the most famous cat now
living. It has won no less than 200 prizes.
Lady Decies is its owner.
The nearest to perfection perhaps, and yet at the same time
extremely soft and finely made, is the Blue Cat, rare in England as an
English cat, but common in most other countries, and called in
America the Maltese Cat—for fashion's sake probably, since it is too
widely distributed there to be localised as of foreign origin. It is out
in the mining districts and agricultural quarters, right away from the
beaten tracks of humanity, where the most wonderful breeds of cats
develop in America; and caravan showmen have told me that at one
time it was quite a business for them to carry cats into these
wildernesses, and sell them to rough, hardy miners, who dealt out
death to each other without hesitation in a quarrel, but who
softened to the appeal of an animal which reminded them of
homelier times.

One man told me that upon one occasion he sold eight cats at an
isolated mining township in Colorado, and some six days' journey
farther on he was caught up by a man on horseback from the
township, who had ridden hard to overtake the menagerie caravan,
with the news that one of the cats had climbed a monster pine-tree,
and that all the other cats had followed in his wake; food and drink
had been placed in plenty at the foot of the tree, but that the cats
had been starving, frightened out of their senses, for three days,
and despite all attempts to reach them they had only climbed higher
and higher out of reach into the uppermost and most dangerous
branches of the pine. The showman hastened with his guide across
country to the township, only to find that in the interval one bright
specimen of a man belonging to the village had suggested felling the
tree, and so rescuing the cats from the pangs of absolute starvation,
should they survive the ordeal. A dynamite cartridge had been used
to blast the roots of the pine, and a rope attached to its trunk had
done the rest and brought the monster tree to earth, only, however,
at the expense of all the cats, for not one survived the tremendous
fall and shaking. A sad and tearful procession followed the remains
of the cats to their hastily dug grave, and thereafter a bull mastiff
took the place of the cats in the township, an animal more in
character with the lives of its inhabitants.

Photo by E. Landor]
[Ealing.
LONG-
HAIRED ORANGE.
A good specimen of this
variety is always large and
finely furred.

Analogous to this case of the travelling menageries, we have the

great variety of blues, silvers, and whites which are characteristic of
Russia. There is a vast tableland of many thousands of miles in
extent, intersected by caravan routes to all the old countries of the
ancients, and it is not astonishing to hear of attempts being made to
steal the wonderful cats of Persia, China, and Northern India, as well
as those of the many dependent and independent tribes which
bound the Russian kingdom. But it is a remarkable fact that none
but the blues can live in the attenuated atmosphere of the higher
mountainous districts through which they are taken before arriving
in Russian territory. It is no uncommon thing to find a wonderful
complexity of blue cats shading to silver and white in most Russian
villages, or blue cats of remarkable beauty, but with a dash of tabby-
marking running through their coats. Their life, too, is lived at the
two extremes. In the short Russian summer they roam the
woodlands, pestered by a hundred poisonous insects; in the winter
they are imprisoned within the four walls of a snow-covered cottage,
and are bound down prisoners to domesticity till the thaw sets in
again. Many of the beautiful furs which come to us from Russia are
really the skins of these cats, the preparation of which for market
has grown into a large and thriving industry. The country about
Kronstadt, in the Southern Carpathian Mountains of Austria, is
famous for its finely developed animals; and here, too, has grown up
a colony of sable-coloured cats, said to be of Turkish origin, where
the pariahs take the place of cats.

Photo by C. Reid] [Wishaw, N.B.

MANX.
These tailless cats are well known;
they were formerly called "Cornwall
cats." Note the length of the hind
legs, which is one of the
characteristics of this variety of the
domestic cat.

Photo by E. Landor] [Ealing.

SIAMESE.
These strikingly coloured cats are
now fairly numerous in England, but
command high prices. They have
white kittens, which subsequently
become coloured.
 BLUE LONG-HAIRED, OR PERSIAN.
This cat belonged to Queen Victoria.

SILVER PERSIANS.
Three of Mrs. Champion's celebrated
cats.

The Tabby is remarkable to us in that it is characteristic of our own

country, and no other colour seems to have been popular until our
own times. If you ask any one which breed of cat is the real
domestic cat, you will be told the tabby, probably because it is so
well known to all. The complexity of the tabby is really remarkable,
and for shape and variety of colouring it has no equal in any other
tribe of cat. It has comprised in its nature all the really great
qualities of the feline, and all its worst attributes. You can truthfully
say of one of its specimens that it attaches itself to the individual,
while of another in the same litter you will get an element of
wildness. A third of the same parents will sober down to the house,
but take only a passing notice of people. You can teach it anything if
it is tractable, make it follow like a dog, come to whistle, but it will
have its independence.
 Photo by E. Landor] [Ealing.
LONG-HAIRED CHINCHILLA.
Note the beautiful "fluffiness" of this
cat's fur.

The Sand-coloured Cat, with a whole-coloured coat like the rabbit,

which we know as the Abyssinian or Bunny Cat, is a strong African
type. On the Gold Coast it comes down from the inland country with
its ears all bitten and torn away in its fights with rivals. It has been
acclimatised in England, and Devonshire and Cornwall have both
established a new and distinct tribe out of its parentage. The Manx
Cat is nearly allied to it, and a hundred years ago the tailless cat was
called the Cornwall Cat, not the Manx.

Siam sends us a regal animal in the Siamese Royal Cat; it has a brown
face, legs, and tail, a cream-coloured body, and mauve or blue eyes.
The Siamese take great care of their cats, for it is believed that the
souls of the departed are transmitted into the bodies of animals, and
the cat is a favourite of their creed; consequently the cats are highly
cultivated and intelligent, and can think out ways and means to
attain an end.

I have tried for years to trace the origin of the Long-haired or Persian
Cats, but I cannot find that they were known to antiquity, and even
the records of later times only mention the Short-haired. European
literature does not give us an insight into the subject; and unless
Chinese history holds some hidden lights in its records, we are
thrown back upon the myths of Persia to account for the wonderful
modern distribution of the long-haired cat, which is gradually
breeding out into as many varieties as the short-haired, with this
difference—that greater care and trouble are taken over the long-
haired, and they will, as a breed, probably soon surpass the short-
haired for intelligence and culture.

Photo by H. Trevor Jessop.

THE "BUN" OR "TICKED" SHORT-HAIRED
CAT.
This is one of the rarest cats in England. It
belongs to Miss K. Maud Bennett who has
kindly had it photographed for this work.

One variety is quite new and distinctive—the Smoke Long-haired,

whose dark brown or black surface-coat, blown aside, shows an
under-coat of blue and silver, with a light brown frill round its neck.
All the other long-haired cats can pair with the short-haired for
colouring and marking, but I have not yet seen a Bunny Long-haired.
 CHAPTER III.
THE FOSSA, CIVETS, AND ICHNEUMONS.

THE FOSSA.

In the Fossa Madagascar possesses an altogether peculiar animal. It

is a very slender, active creature, with all its proportions much
elongated. It is of a bright bay uniform colour, with thick fur, and has
sharp retractile claws. It has been described as the natural
connecting-link between the Civets and the Cats, anatomically
speaking. Thus it has retractile claws, but does not walk on its toes,
like cats, but on the soles of its feet (the hind pair of which is quite
naked), like a civet. Very few have been brought to England; indeed,
the first time that one was exhibited in our Zoological Gardens was
only ten years ago. Formerly stories were told of its ferocity, which
was compared to that of the tiger. These tales were naturally the
subject of ridicule. The fossa usually attains a length of about 5 feet
from snout to tail, and is the largest of the carnivora of Madagascar.
A fine young specimen lately brought to London, and in the
Zoological Gardens at the time of writing, is now probably full
grown. It is about the same length and height as a large ocelot, but
with a far longer tail, and is more slenderly built. The extreme
activity of the fossa no doubt renders it a very formidable foe to
other and weaker creatures. It has been described by a recent writer
as being entirely nocturnal, and preying mainly on the lemurs and
birds which haunt the forests of Madagascar. The animal kept at the
Zoological Gardens has become fairly tame. It is fed mainly on
chickens' heads and other refuse from poulterers' shops. Apparently
it has no voice of any kind. It neither growls, roars, nor mews,
though, when irritated or frightened, it gives a kind of hiss like a cat.
 Photo by A. S. Rudland & Sons.
FOSSA.
The only feline animal of Madagascar.

Photo by L. Medland, F.Z.S.]

[North Finchley.
LARGE INDIAN
CIVET.
Civets are nocturnal in their habits.
That shown here has just awakened
in broad daylight.

THE CIVETS AND GENETS.

The Civets are the first marked deviation from the Cat Family. Their
bodies are elongated, their legs short, their claws only partially
retractile. Some of them have glands holding a strong scent, much
esteemed in old days in Europe, when "The Civet Cat" was a
common inn-sign even in England. The civets are generally
beautifully marked with black stripes and bands on grey. But none of
them grow to any large size, and the family has never had the
importance of those which contain the large carnivora, like the true
cats or bears. Many of the tribe and its connections are
domesticated. Some scholars have maintained that the cat of the
ancient Greeks was one of them—the common genet. The fact is
that both this and the domestic cat were kept by the ancients; and
the genet is still used as a cat by the peasants of Greece and
Southern Italy.

The African Civet and Indian Civet are large species. The former is
common almost throughout Africa. Neither of them seems to climb
trees, but they find abundance of food by catching small ground-
dwelling animals and birds. They are good swimmers. The Indian
civet has a handsome skin, of a beautiful grey ground-colour, with
black collar and markings. It is from these civets that the civet-scent
is obtained. They are kept in cages for this purpose, and the
secretion is scooped from the glands with a wooden spoon. They
produce three or four kittens in May or June. Several other species
very little differing from these are known as the Malabar, Javan, and
Burmese Civets.

The Rasse is smaller, has no erectile crest, and its geographical

distribution extends from Africa to the Far East. It is commonly kept
as a domestic pet. Like all the civets, it will eat fruit and vegetables.

The Genets, though resembling the civets, have no scent-pouch.

They are African creatures, but are found in Italy, Spain, and Greece,
and in Palestine, and even in the south of France. Beautifully spotted
or striped, they are even longer and lower than the civet-cats, and
steal through the grass like weasels.
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebookultra.com