Secrets of the Cat_ Its Lore, Legend, and Lives - Barbara Holland [70]
Leaving aside the naturalist who thinks domestic cats stalk their prey standing up straight and tall, and the scientific description of its face as “foolish,” surely he saw a Maine Coon Cat rustling its breakfast on the Cape, not in the least extinct and, foolish or not, at least as capable and independent as Mr. Beston, who kept bumming rides into town to buy his groceries.
Maine cats make splendid instructive parents, and the kittens, who adore them and mature slowly, shouldn’t leave home till they’re twelve weeks old. They grow into considerable cats, weighing eighteen pounds and up, and rather clumsy on their big snow-shoe feet, with brushy raccoon tails, loud purrs, merry dispositions and a grand self-possession. They like water, and that bushy coat is protected by a water-resistant oil for swimming; even when soaked, a Coon Cat is said to dry in fifteen minutes.
I went to a party in the suburbs. At exactly eleven o’clock in the evening a guest said, “There’s someone at the door.” Our host opened the door and stood staring blankly out into the empty darkness at eye level while an enormous cat stalked in around his feet. It marched across the room, ignoring the guests all reaching to pat it and crying “What a beautiful cat!” and stopped in front of George and Pat, and looked at them. It did not meow or rub against their ankles; it stood there and looked at them. They jumped up and made their apologies, found their coats and said good night and left, following the Coon Cat, who led them out looking neither to left nor right, for all the world like the father of errant teenagers come to fetch them home.
Fine fellows.
The Manx cat is not part rabbit, though the Britannica does hint mysteriously at a possible derivation from “another species.” As far as we know, rabbits mate only with other rabbits, and are looked on by cats more as dinner than romance, and the notion is only slightly more probable than the story of how they arrived late at the Ark and Noah slammed the door on their tails. They seem to come from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, but since this is an insignificant area of only 221 square miles, various theories are put forth as to what larger place they arrived from. Some say Spain, swimming ashore from a shipwrecked galleon of the Armada. Some say China or Japan, because there’s a tailless cat of long history called the Japanese Bobtail, considered very lucky when it turns up in three colors, though actually it may have been Korean to start with. The most recent investigations, however, conclude that it’s genetically quite a different cat, and the Manx may come from Man after all; one source observes that there are tailless dogs on Man.
A single stubborn authority maintains that there is no Manx cat, and taillessness is simply a genetic freak that can turn up in any breed at any time.
Some Manx cats have no tail at all, just a dimple at the base of the spine, and some, called “stumpies,” have part of a tail, and some have proper tails. My sister’s Mehitabel, longhaired and of unknown origin, has half a tail; two of her daughters have real tails, and the third has a two-inch downward hook of a tail like a spit curl.
Among the Manx, only the quite tailless cat is eligible for showing. But breeders need to keep a few stumpies around for breeding, because there’s a lethal factor in the missing tail; in the mating of tailless cats, the third generation will be weak and sickly and the fourth will be stillborn. There’s something a bit skewed in the human encouragement of such a suicidal trait.
Manx cats have plushy undercoats and long hind legs like rabbits, and they swim well, as befits islanders.
Gray cats are nice. All gray cats, recognized or not, are nice; when they’re recognized they’re called blue cats. Each nation claims to have its own, and though to the untrained eye they look remarkably alike, each nation feels its own is best.
Malaysia has its blue jungle cat, and the light gray cat of Cyprus has black pads on its feet. Malta has its Maltese cats, and