Читать книгу The Cat Owners Handbook - Graham Meadows - Страница 13

By their very nature, cats, especially mature males (toms), are wanderers. Before the concept of selective breeding about 150 years ago, this wanderlust in domestic cats provided plenty of opportunity for the intermingling of genes. If there were two distinct races of cat in any region they blended over a period time, so we cannot be sure of the origin of many of our modern domestic breeds.

Today there are more than 160 colour varieties of the Persian cat.

Nevertheless, studies of the skeletal structure, body type and hair length of modern breeds enable us to make an informed guess. The heavier, more thickset body type, found in British Shorthairs and Persians, shows the influence of the European wild cat. The foreign and Oriental breeds (such as the Abyssinian and Siamese) retain the lithe body of the African wild cat.

There seems to be no evidence for the claim that some domestic breeds (such as the Angora, Chinese cat and Siamese) have an Asiatic origin and may be descended from Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul) or its close relatives, as the skulls of these cats show no similarity to the Asiatic species.