One of the very first books exclusive for Himalayan's Breeders, year 1971 |
@ George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1971
Printed in Great Britain
in 10 on 12 point Times
by
Blackfriars Press Ltd
Leicester
Preface
The following pages and illustrations have been prepared in response to
the rapid increase in interest in pedigree cats all over the world, and to
the consequent demand for information of a precise nature. In particular
the numbers of Colourpoint (Himalayan) cats are growing at a rate which
may soon make them the most popular variety of feline pet. Both
breeders and owners of these cats have no suitable book of reference
and the need is keenly felt. The technical information recorded is minimal and presented in such a
way as to be readily understandable by anyone wishing to read, but
possessing no previous specialized knowledge. The scientific basis of
animal breeding, and the relationship of one domestic variety to another
are clearly and simply explained on a practical basis, such as is needed
by the interested public. Owners and breeders alike are provided with
working details concerning breeding and maintenance. Some
information is also included about all domestic varieties of cats. But this book serves another public also, that of schools, technical
colleges and students taking elementary biology courses at the
universities. The trend in modern biological teaching is to make the
courses more practical and relevant to everyday affairs. The basic
principles of genetics are usually introduced to students by way of
Mendel's peas: tall, short, wrinkled, smooth, etc. A study of coat pattern
in mice is also often used, but tends to be elaborate. A simple start can
be made in a much more acceptable manner by considering cats whose
differences in colour pattern and conformation are well known and easily
appreciated, and their inheritance, though at first sight complex, can
easily be understood. The greater human appeal of cats is also a help
and this is further enhanced in the book by constant reference to
features seen in photographs of named pedigree cats. Studies of
patterns of behaviour in animals are taking a firm place in both
universities and schools. The following pages give an introduction to
this subject too. Biologists may also appreciate the data included upon
man-made and naturally occurring varieties. And many may find the
short history of a planned scientific project both interesting and an
indication of the mode of utilization of scientific knowledge. PREFACE
My thanks are due: to Mrs 1. Hancox, Mrs B. Nicholas and Mrs R.
Levy for their kindness in reading the manuscript and making helpful
suggestions; to my husband, Dr J. P. Harding for his unfailing interest in
my cats and for the patience and time he has expended upon their
photography; and to Mr John Adriaan for kindly allowing two of his
photographs to be reproduced as Photographs 31 and 32, and to Mrs H.
Noddin for supplying Photographs 21 a and b of Mingchiu Murdock.S. M. Manton (Mrs J. P. Harding),
Mingchiu Cattery, 88 Ennerdale Road,
Richmond, Surrey, England.
8
Contents
preface 7
1. Introduction
13
2. The reproductive cycle and breeding pairs
19
3. Inheritance and segregation of paired characters
22
4. Type and eye colour in Colourpoints and their inheritance
31
5. Hybrids, mutations and the status of the Colourpoint
Longhair Cat 48
6. The inheritance of the Seal, Blue, Chocolate and Lilac
colours of the points of Colourpoints 55
7. The campaign for the production of Chocolate and Lilac
pointed Colourpoints 62
8. Red, Tortie and Cream-pointed Colourpoints and sex-linked
inheritance 69
9. The temperament or character of Colourpoints
75
10. Man-made and natural varieties 81
11. Housing and habits 84
12. Food and maintenance 92
13. Breeding and general management 102
14. Feeding kittens and bottle rearing 118
15. Worms and inoculations 123
16. Postscript 127
Appendix: Coat colour of cats and other mammals 129
Index 139
Illustrations
1. Champion Mingchiu Polo (a) at 9 months, (b) at
51 years between pages 24-5
2. Seal-point Briarry Candytuft at 8 months
I Seal-point Ch. Mingchiu Chou-Lu at 8 1/2 months
4. 3-month-old Seal-points of 1954
5. 3-month-old Seal-point of 1957, Ch. Mingchiu Chou-Lu
6. 7-month-old Seal-point female of 1968
7. 6-month-old Blue-point male Mingchiu Roy
8. Gr. Ch. Blue-point female Mingchiu Nootka of Pic's
at 2 months 40-1
9. Blue-point kitten aged 4 months
10. Ch. Mingchiu Choc at 2 years
11. Ch. Mingchiu Ghunti in his first winter coat
12. An early Colourpoint at 8 months
13. Ch. Mingchiu Chou-Lu at 8 months 72-3
14. Blue Longhair Ch. Diana of Pensford
15. Mingchiu Melania, a Shorthair Black
16. Two Mingchiu Black Longhair kittens of good type
17. Ch. Mingchiu Chou-Lu at I I months
18. Ch. Mingchiu Chou-Lu at I I months
19. Two Best in Show Longhair kittens, Blue-point left
and Seal-point right 88-9
20. Champion Black Longhair, Mingchiu Magog
21. Gr. Ch. Mingchiu Murdock of Badi, Seal-point male,
(a) at 14 months, and (b) at 26 months
22. Champion Blue-point female Mingchiu Monique at
8 months
23. Mingchiu Karelia, Blue-point, at 3 1/2 months
24. Ch. Mingchiu Polo at 4 years
25-28. 4-week-old kittens needing supplementary feeding
29. Kittens aged 9 weeks 104-5
30. A 6-day-old kitten taking his bottle
31. Mingchiu Trivia, a Seal-pointed Shorthair
32. An early Mingchiu Blue-pointed kitten lacking good
demarcation between nose and forehead
33. Mingchiu Mirabelle, prize-winning Chocolate-point
Siamese, with her litter between pages 104-5
34. Male Seal-point with good nose but poor ears
35. Litter aged 9 weeks from Briarry Roxana, 1960
36. 1968 Mingchiu kittens at 9 weeks
37. Ch. Mingchiu Monique aged 6 years 112-3
38. Ch. Mingchiu Monique and Briarry Roxana aged
10 years
39. Bird's-eye view of house for one male and two females
40. Left-hand side of house
41. Door shut and pop-hole open
42. Comer of run showing wooden shelves and walls of
concrete, wood and wire netting 128-9
43. Corner with grass plot and wired-in bed of cat-mint
Colour Illustrations
I. Ch. Mingchiu Mudoba, Seal-point male aged
II. Ch. Mingchiu Tinka in her first adolescent winter coat 33
Ill. Champion Blue-point male Mingchiu Chirk 33
IV. Ch. Mingchiu Obel, female Seal-point whose type is
unsurpassed 48
V. Ch. Mingchiu Mudoba 48
VI. Ch. Mingchiu Mandarin of Sahadi aged I year and his
34 British awards 65
VII. Champion Blue-point male Mingchiu Ghunti 65
VIII. Champion Lilac-point Mingchiu Sulafour, female aged
9 months 80
IX. First Chocolate-point Champion, Mingchiu Ptan, male
aged 3 years 80
X. An early Colourpoint of poor type but good eyes 97
XI. Ch. Mingchiu Mudoba showing all features of a good
type Colourpoint 97
XII. A Lilac-point Mingchiu Sulafour of good type 120
XIII. Mingchiu Lilak, the first Self-lilac Longhair 120
XIV. Left: Lilac-point kitten Mingchiu Sulafour, right: Self
lilac Longhair Mingchiu Bini 121
XV. Left: Chocolate-point female Mingchiu Vanessa,
right: Self-chocolate Longhair female Mingchiu Koca 121
1. Introduction
What is a Colourpoint? Some twenty years of planned and selective
breeding in England had by 1968 produced the superb show type
Persian or Longhair cat with the Siamese colour pattern, which has taken
high honours on the show benches of the world (Colour photographs
IN). This comparatively new variety of cat, first given official recognition
by the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy of Britain in 1955, is now
widely recognized as one of the most worthwhile and delightful of pets. In California, some three years after the breeding of Colourpoints was
seriously started in England, the first Himalayans were in the making.
These two varieties are roughly the same in general appearance. The
objective in England is to produce a Colourpoint. Longhair or Persian
cat (the words carry the same meaning), with the good type found in
other colour varieties of Longhair, which means breeding cats which are
say 99.9 per cent Persian or Longhair in their genetical makeup and
carry, from the Siamese forbear, only the genes controlling coat pattern.
Among breeders of the United States there is considerable difference of
opinion as to what is the aim of Himalayan breeding and how it should
be achieved. The facts of animal breeding and the genetical basis of
colour and of body conformation in cats is not, and can never be,
influenced by opinionated Cat Fancy legislation; it is desirable that the
genetical basis of Siamese, Persian and Himalayans be understood and it
is essential that legislation be moulded upon the facts, not upon
opinions. Meanwhile a clear understanding of the aims and genetics of
Colourpoint breeding in England has enabled steady progress to be
made, unhampered by ill-conceived legislation. And the result is seen in
the performance of English Colourpoints on the show benches of all
countries where they compete successfully not only with Himalayans
but with other varieties of Longhair. This success is not due to the three
years' start enjoyed by Colourpoints over Himalayans, but
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
to the manner of breeding of the former, as is shown in the following
pages. The data presented here are based upon the work that has been
achieved in the Briarry and Mingchiu catteries in England. The cats will
be referred to by their English name of Colourpoint, an abbreviation of
Colourpoint Longhair. Confusion in terminology is occasioned by the
existence of the category Colourpoint Shorthair in America, comprising
cats which in England are called Red-pointed Siamese. The scientific
data which are summarized below are equally applicable to American
Himalayans. The following pages have been compiled for breeders and owners of
Colourpoints (or Himalayans) who have made no special study of
cytology and genetics, but wish to understand the origin of
Colourpoints and their breeding and improvement. And it must be
emphasized that these cats have captivated the world not only by their
beauty, but by their unique and delightful temperament which, when
they are permitted a free domestic existence without pens, delights their
owners. The beginnings of Colourpoints, from the chance matings of cats with
no known owners, if they had owners, to a simple cross such as that
between a Longhair Blue (Photograph 14) and a Seal-point Siamese (a
Chocolate-point is shown in Photograph 33), were humble. The Briarry
cattery in Richmond, England, owned by the late Mr B. A. Stirling-
Webb, was the home of most of the budding Colourpoints. Unknown to
him at that time, the development of the American Himalayan was
started by the late Mrs Goforth, and only three years after the beginning
of his serious enterprise, one which occupied him until the end of his
life. For nearly ten years the Mingchiu cattery joined forces with the
Briarry cattery in the progressive breeding of Colourpoints, there being
then only a few other breeders of Colourpoints in England. It is the
Mingchiu cattery which has developed the finest-typed show
specimens, together with two new colour varieties, the Lilac and
Chocolate-pointed Colourpoints, and at the same time two other new
varieties the Self-chocolate Longhair and Self-lilac Longhair. The Self-
chocolate Longhair was first created by Mr Stirling-Webb. Today there
is a growing number of enthusiastic breeders of Colourpoints located in
very many parts of England, Wales and Scotland, and Colourpoints
from this country have passed to most European 14 INTRODUCTION
countries for breeding and have been exported to all the continents of
the world. Present-day air travel makes it easier to send a kitten from
London to Western Canada or Honolulu than it is to send a kitten to
many parts of the British Isles! A breeding pair of Colourpoints
frequently starts the propagation of this delightful cat in regions where
none had previously existed and where there is little information about
them. Domestic varieties of cat differ in the general shape of the body, in the
type of coat and in the colouring of the hair and eyes. In Britain three
groups of domestic varieties have been recognized by the Governing
Council of the Cat Fancy, but the distinctions between them are not
absolute, intermediates exist, and some of the newer varieties do not fit
into any of the three categories. The system is due for revision, but until
this is made the present classification stands. The group of varieties
known as 'Longhair' has the same meaning as the older terms 'Persian'
and 'Angora'; they are cats possessing all features of body
conformation found in good type Persians of other countries. The
Longhair varieties contrast in coat length with the Shorthair varieties. In
Britain the latter are subdivided into the 'British' and the 'Foreign' types,
an unfortunate insular method of description, because all varieties of
domestic cats are international. The Longhair varieties of cat are characterized by a massive 'cobby'
body, a compact and powerfully built frame, with short legs, wide feet
and short tail (Colour photographs V, VIII, Xl, Photographs 5, 17, 18).
The head is round with good cranial width, the ears small, tufted and
outwardly directed, the nose short and well turned off the forehead and
the face wide with large round eyes (Colour photographs 1, Ill, IV,
Photographs 1, 11, 14). The coat, is long, the hair silky for choice, rather
than woolly, and in winter a long frill frames the face, the tail carrying a
full brush the width of the body (Colour photographs 1, Ill, VII,
Photographs 2, 3, 13). Typical varieties of Longhair are: Orange-eyed
Black (Photographs 16, 20); Orange and Blue-eyed Whites; Blue
(Photograph 14); Cream; BlueCream; Tortoiseshell; Tortoiseshell and
White; Chinchilla; Silver, Brown and Red Tabbies; Red Self; Smoke;
Colourpoint; and Bicoloured. The Birman and the Turkish Cat differ in
some respects from typical Longhairs; the Balinese as yet unrecognized
by the G.C.C.F., does not fit in here at all in spite of its long coat.
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
The Shorthair varieties carry a short coat, not of the same kind in all,
and two main conformations of body. In general, the further east in
distribution the longer is the face and the more wedge-shaped the head,
with large cars. The further west in distribution the broader is the head
and face and the smaller the ears. The 'British' cats tend towards the
western type and the 'Foreign' cats towards the eastern type. The
'British' Shorthair type possesses a round head, short nose and tail,
powerful body, round ears, etc. (Photograph 15), in contrast to the
'Foreign' Shorthair with long, lithe, lightly built bodies, longer and more
wedge-shaped heads, ears large, tan and pointed, tail long and tapering,
paws narrow and dainty, etc. (Photograph 33). Typical 'British' varieties
are: the Orange-eyed Black (Photograph 15); Blue and Orange-eyed
Whites; Blue; Cream; Blue-cream; Tortoiseshell; Tortoiseshell and
White; Silver, Brown and Red Tabbies; Bicoloured; and Spotted.
Typical 'Foreign' Shorthair varieties are: Siamese (Photograph 33);
Burmese; Foreign White (a dominant white variety of the Siamese type);
Abyssinian; and Chestnut Brown. The adopted standard for the
'Russian Blue' differs somewhat, from the above. The Devon and
Cornish Rex cats have coats lacking the long guard hairs, leaving the
soft undercoat which tends to be wavy. A third conformation of body, but not recognized by the G.C.C.F., as
distinct from 'British Shorthair', is the Manx, a tailless cat which borders
on the abnormal. An conditions exist between the entire absence of a
tail and partial tails in kittens from Manx parents. The Longhair genetical
factor can also occur in Manx, as in many other varieties. The agouti grey fur of many wild species of mammals is composed of
hairs which are individually ticked (striped). Three basic colours make
up the grey coat, the black, chocolate (brown) and yellow pigments. The
paler grey areas on a Tabby cat are made up of ticked fur. The pattern on
a Tabby is formed by hairs in which the colour tends towards solid
black. In a Red Tabby the yellow (or red) pigment almost replaces the
black, and ticking, but not the striping, is almost eliminated. Ticking is
also found in the coats of the Chinchilla, Abyssinian, Smoke and Manx.
There is no ticking in the coats of Black, Blue, Blue-cream, Tortoiseshell,
Tortie and White, or in the Seal, Blue, Chocolate and Lilac-pointed cats.
The Red Tabby and 16
1 THE FINEST COLOURPOINT OF 1969 Ch. Mingchiu Mudoba, Seal-pointed male, aged
14 months. He possesses deep blue eyes combined with a short, well-demarcated
nose, other features of good type and a long, dense, outstanding coat.
 INTRODUCTION
Red Self are genetically similar in essentials. Cream is a dilute form of
Red; and the basic genotype of the Chinchilla is akin to that of the Silver
Tabby. In Siamese, Birmans and Colourpoints there is a reduction of pigment,
and it is largely restricted to the extremities, the nose, ears, feet and tail,
which are called the points. A basic colour is Seal-point, and this is
modified by additional genetical factors to produce Blue, Chocolate and
Lilac-points, with some corresponding changes in the body colour. Seal
brown corresponds with Black among selfcoloured cats; the Blue and
Lilac-points correspond with the similarly named Self-coloured varieties,
and the Chocolate-point corresponds with the 'Chestnut Brown',
'Foreign', 'Havana' and Brown Burmese. Red points do not belong to this
series, and ticking is scarcely present outside the solid colour of the
ghost stripes which appear on the points. Tortoiseshell, Tabby and
other coloured points have been bred in the Siamese, but to a lesser
extent in the Longhairs. Many other varieties of cat can be produced which breed true. Some
of these have been made by planned breeding in the United States of
America, but they have as yet not gained recognition from the
Governing Council of the Cat Fancy in Britain. It is suggested that readers without specialized knowledge of
cytology should take for granted the detailed and well established
evidence for the facts to which reference is made in Chapters 2 and 3
regarding the equal chances of eggs being fertilized by different types of
sperms. These matters rest upon sound foundations which need not be
fully comprehended for the rest of the account to be intelligible to
anyone interested in the subject. There are popular books in plenty
which deal with inheritance, but in such a superficial manner, toned
down for consumption by the uninitiated, as to be quite useless for all
practical purposes of the cat breeder, or of the interested owner of a
Colourpoint or a Himalayan. Most of the varieties of cat which have been used in the development
of Colourpoints are shown in the photographs reproduced on the
plates. An attempt has been made to illustrate pictorially the stages in
the advancement of the variety in its several colours. No cats are
particularly co-operative towards a photographer. Some view the
necessary lights with a scowl or an expression of disgust upon their
faces, others flatly refuse to sit for their portraits. Kittens B 17
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
greet the situation with cross or glum resignation or with escape. Some
cats, such as Ch. Mingchiu Monique and Ch. Mingchiu ChouLu
(Photographs 13, 22) always prick their ears to the bright lights, so
spoiling their heads, photographically, and masking their good type.
The photographs shown almost entirely depict cats from the Mingchiu.
cattery because of their accessibility and because it is here that most
progress has been made in recent years in the advancement of
Colourpoints and in the creation of other varieties.
18
2. The reproductive cycle and breeding pairs
The body of the cat is made up of multitudes of microscopic units called
cells, each of which contains the bearers of the many determinants of
hereditary characters. The bearers, termed the chromosomes, occur in
pairs and each member of a pair is like its fellow. A pair of these bearers
can be represented thus: ( ) ( ). But in the eggs and sperms produced by
the cat these bearers are single, thus: ( ). Take a pair of cats, male and
female: they will produce eggs, one thousandth of an inch in size, whose
bearers can be represented as and sperms, much smaller in size, each
containing one bearer or chromosome from every original pair. After the mating of the female by the male, each egg produced is
fertilized by one sperm, the two fusing together. The fertilized egg can
be represented as () (), the double number of bearers being restored by
the fusion of the egg and sperm. The bearers of hereditary characters, the chromosomes, in an animal
cell are few in number, 18 pairs and the sex chromosomes in cats, and
each carries a large number of 'genes', each gene being the determinant
of some characteristic of the animal. Simple examples are given below
which show the inheritance and segregation of genes borne on different
bearers or chromosomes. The number of hereditary characters in an
animal, and therefore the number of genes, is .very great, far greater than
the number of chromosomes, thus one chromosome carries many genes. When the genes for two different characters are borne by the same
chromosome, the genes tend to be inherited together, and do not show
the 'segregation' taking place at the formation of eggs and sperm, and at
fertilization, which is described below. 'Linkage' and 6 partial linkage' are
more complex phenomena than those appertaining to the inheritance of
the major characteristics of Colourpoints, and they are not necessary for
understanding the account given of Seal, Blue, Chocolate and Lilac-
pointed Colourpoints. However, it
19
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Iis possible to breed other coloured points in the Longhairs, such as
Tortoiseshell and Red, and here an understanding of sex-linked
inheritance is needed and is described in Chapter 8. These two colour
varieties have been produced mainly in America; their genetics is
parallel to that of the Red and Tortoiseshell-points of Siamese. Cats for breeding should be the finest specimens which the breeder
can obtain. And this means well grown and healthy as well as of good
appearance, the cats being worthy representatives of their variety. The
difference in prices of kittens is determined by their show-bench
potential, other factors being equal. The finest kittens are not easy to
come by or to breed, and are much sought after. The range of price in
kittens is a small sum compared with the upkeep for life, 13-20 years or
so, and if breeding is the object, economy in purchase price is pointless.
The difficulty at the present time is to secure top flyers, unless you
breed them yourself. Pairs of Colourpoints for breeding should be selected from different
parentage. But a male and female, sired by the same outstanding cat, is
permissible when the other parent of each represents a distinctly
different line of breeding. Brother to sister and parent to offspring
matings are usually best avoided. Both parents are equally important in
transmitting the heritable characters to their kittens. But if the parents
are closely related there is a chance of both of them transmitting the
same lethal or undesirable genes to the kittens. Such genes in single
dose axe harmless, but in double dose (homozygous) they exercise their
deleterious or lethal effects. Since no Colourpoints are yet perfect, the variety being in the process
of evolution, it is desirable either to make up breeding pairs from the
most outstanding specimens available, or to form a pair in which the
shortcomings of the one are countered by the strong points of the
other, the requirements mentioned above also being met. For example:
do not breed from a pair of cats both possessing too long or too straight
a nose (Colour photograph X, Photograph 32), too narrow a top of head
with large upright ears wide open at the base (Photographs 34, 35), too
little colour in the eye, too long in the body and tail, or with poor coat.
Kittens from such pairs are not likely to be very good looking, however
healthy and well brought up they may be. The breeding of delightful pet
type kittens is not a saving in expense, and does not help the progress
of the variety. The
20
THE REPRODUCTIVE CYCLE AND BREEDING PAIRS
chances of breeding an outstanding kitten is far greater from a balanced
pair of cats, there will be a range in type among their kittens and some
may be a substantial improvement on either parent and others can be
expected to be the reverse. The manner of building up good type in
Colourpoints is considered in Chapter 4.
21
3. Inheritance and segregation of paired
characteristics
Visible characteristics are often inherited as pairs of opposites, for
example in the cat, Longhair versus Shorthair. (This example is not ideally
simple because intermediate lengths of coat exist, and we know that this
pair of opposites is really composite, hair length being controlled not by
one but by a number of paired 'genes'.) But some understanding of the
inheritance of long and of short hair is a first essential, because the
genes controlling the Siamese colour pattern were introduced into the
Longhairs from Shorthairs. One character of each pair is usually dominant to the other (there are
cases of incomplete dominance, but they need not be considered now,
see p. 70). Short hair is dominant to long, that is a cat carrying the genes
for both is always short haired. The recessive characteristic, long hair, is
only visual in cats genetically 'pure' for this character and carrying no
gene for short hair. This is made clear by the following matings.
Let us cross a LONGHAIRED FEMALE (Colour photograph XII,
Photographs 12, 14) with a SHORTHAIRED MALE (Photograph 33). Let
the Longhair genes be LL and the Shorthair genes be SS in these cats. 
The fertilized eggs and the resulting kittens (first filial or F 1 generation)
will be LS in composition. The S gene is dominant to the L gene, so the F 1 kittens will all be
Shorthair (Photographs 15, 31) but invisibly carrying the gene for
22
SEGREGATION OF PAIRED CHARACTERISTICS
Longhair, heterozygous for Longhair and Shorthair, i.e. one gene of
each and not two as in the homozygous parents. if we now mate
together two such Shorthair cats, each carrying the Longhair gene:
SHORTHAIR CARRYING LONGHAIR X SHORTHAIR CARRYING
LONGHAIR
SL SL
the eggs will be the sperms will be
of two kinds: of two kinds:
L, giving fertilized eggs and F 2 kittens SS and SL, see dotted lines
above. Egg L has an equal chance of being fertilized by Sperm S or by
sperm L, see solid lines above, giving fertilized eggs and kittens LS and
LL. Thus in all there will be in the F 2 generation of kittens:
LL LS SL' ss
One pure Longhair cat, which will breed nothing but Longhair when mated to the same. (in appearance as in Photograph 20) Two Shorthair cats carrying Longhair invisibly, and which can breed exactly like the F 1 cats. (e.g. Photograph 15) One pure Shorthair cat which carries no Longhair and will produce nothing but Shorthair when mated to the same.
These proportions 1:2:1 will be the average expectation from a
'LS and SL are genetically identical.
23
  COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
large number of litters. One litter may deviate considerably from the
average.
It should be noted that the SS cats and the SL cats look alike, all
Shorthair (Photograph 15), and can only be differentiated by further
breeding, so from the above mating the expectation is one Longhair to
three Shorthair.
EXAMPLE 2
Now take another simple pair of characters (called an allelomorphic pair),
that of a SELF OR SOLID-COLOURED cat (Black, Blue, Brown, etc.) and
one with the SIAMESE COLOUR PATTERN (Photograph 33). Let us
mate a Solid-coloured cat, Black for example, with a Siamese. The solid
colour is dominant to the patterned coat. 
As in Example I above, the F I cats produced by such a mating will all be
BP in composition and will all appear black (Photograph 15) but will
carry the Siamese coat pattern'. Next, mate together two such Black carriers
BP X BP
There will be two kinds of eggs B and P and two kinds of sperms B and
P, and each egg has an equal chance of being fertilized by either type of
sperm, as in Example 1. 
'Other colours may appear in the F 1 generation if the Black and Siamese
parents each carry similar genes for recessive characters, such as blue.
24
A MATURING MALE Above: Champion Mingchiu Polo, Seal-pointed male, sired by a
Self-blue carrier, Briarry Valparago. At 9 months he shows the typical incomplete
mask of the adolescent. Below: Polo at 512 years, showing spread of the mask and
fine set of the ears, wide top of head, short nose, etc. He has sired many
champions.
  16
1a
 THE FULL PALE COAT, DARK SEAL POINTS AND FINE TYPE Above: Ch. Briarry Candytuft at
8 months. She left no progeny. Right: Ch. Mingchiu Chou-Lu at 8,1 months, ears
momentarily pricked, short nose, firm chin, fine coat, and later an efficient Stud.
  GROWTH OF TYPE AND EARS
Compare with Photographs 8,
9 opposite p. 40. Top: 3-month-old Seal-points
of 1954, ears too upright, tops
of head too narrow, noses too
long. there will be four there will be four
kind of eggs: kinds of sperms:
LB LB
LP LP
SB SB
SP SP
As before, each egg has an equal chance of being fertilized by any type
of sperm. The results of such fertilizations, 16 in number, are most easily
expressed by a table as shown. An egg of type LB can be fertilized by
sperm LB, see Square 1. An egg of type LB can be fertilized by sperm
LP, see Square 2. An egg of type LP can be fertilized by sperm SP, see
Square 8, and so on. Each square represents the composition of an F 2 kitten. The variety
represents the average expectation among sixteen kittens resulting from
the F I x F I type of matings, but much larger numbers of kittens may be
required to give this average. It will be noted that only four of these cats will be genetically 'pure'
for the characters under consideration. Square I shows a pure Longhair
Black, homozygous for both Longhair and Black, and therefore carrying
none of the opposite genes. Square 6 shows a pure Colourpoint,
homozygous for Longhair and for the Siamese pattern. Square I I shows
a pure Shorthair Black, and Square 16 shows a pure Siamese. These four
cats when mated to the same will produce only cats like themselves. Squares 2 and 5 show Longhair Black cats carrying the Siamese
colour pattern (Photograph 20), they look like the cat in Square 1, and
can only be differentiated from it by further breeding. Squares 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15 are all Shorthair Black cats carrying
one or both of the recessive characters (Photograph 15) and they
externally resemble the pure Shorthair Black in Square 11, from which
they can only be differentiated by further breeding. Squares 14 and 8
show Siamese cats carrying Longhair (Photograph 3 1), and they are
visibly indistinguishable from the pure Siamese in Square 16. Note that only one of the sixteen cats shows its certain genetical
26
Types of eggs
LB
LP
SB
SP
SEGREGATION OF PAIRED CHARACTERISTICS
LB LP SB SP
1 LLBB * pure
Longhair Black
5 LLBP
Longhair
Black
carrying
Siamese
pattern
9 LSBB 40 Shorthair Black
carrying
Longhair
13 LSBP 0 Shorthair Black
carrying
Longhair and
Siamese pattern
2 LLBP * 3 LSBB 0 4 LSBP
Longhair Shorthair Shorthair
Black Black Black carrying
carrying carrying Longhair and
Siamese Longhair Siamese
pattern pattern
Photograph 29 Photograph 15
6 LLPP 7 LSPB 0 8 LSPP 0
Longhair with Shorthair Shorthair
Siamese Black Siamese
pattern, carrying pattern
COLOUR- Longhair and carrying
POINT Siamese Longhair
pure pattern
Photograph 12
10 LSBP 40 11 SSBB 0 12 SSBP 0
Shorthair pure Shorthair
Black Shorthair Black
carrying Black carrying
Longhair and Siamese
Siamese pattern
pattern
14 LSPP 0 15 SSBP 9 16 SSPP 0
Shorthair Shorthair Shorthair
Siamese Black Siamese
pattern carrying pure for both
carrying Siamese Shorthair and
Longhair pattern coat pattern
Photograph 31 1 1
Photograph 331
The marks *, 0 and 0 in the top right Of the squares denote cats of the
same external appearance.
composition by its appearance, the Colourpoint in Square 6
(Photograph 12). And this is because both the characteristics of this
variety of cat, the Longhair and the Siamese pattern are recessive, and
therefore if they are visible at all, the cat must be pure for each. The
Colourpoint, when you get it, breeds true when mated to the same:
27
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
so that the ensuing fertilized eggs and kittens will all be LLSS in
composition and just like the parents in appearance. No number of extra
generations of Colourpoints will make them more pure, genetically, than
they are when they first appear. The Colourpoint is formed by the
segregation and recombination of very well known genes, or
determinants of hereditary characters, and this can occur in the wild as
well as under human control. There is nothing particularly man made
about any of the steps by which a Colourpoint is produced. Colourpoints can also be bred from many other cats in the table
above. Any of the Longhair Blacks carrying the Siamese colour pattern,
Squares 2 and 5, with genetical composition LLBP, when mated together
will produce a Colourpoint: 
Fertilization of these eggs by the sperms to produce the F3 generation
will give fertilized eggs and kittens:
One pure Longhair Two Longhair One pure
Black Blacks carrying Colourpoint,
the Siamese Longhair with
Thus one out of four cats in this F 3 generation will be Colourpoint.
28
SEGREGATION OF PAIRED CHARACTERISTICS
Similarly the Longhair Black carrier in Square 2 mated to a Shorthair
Black carrying both Longhair and Siamese pattern in Square 4, will
produce one Colourpoint in eight in the F3 generation. The Siamese cats carrying Longhair in Squares 8 and 14 also can
produce a Colourpoint when mated together and in the proportion of
one in four. A number of matings of cats in the table will not produce
Colourpoints. The pure Longhair Black, Shorthair Black and Siamese in
Squares 1, 11 and 16 will only produce the same when each type is
mated to the same. The Shorthair Blacks in Squares 3 and 9 when mated
together will produce no Colourpoint because they carry no Siamese
pattern. The Shorthair Blacks in Squares 12 and 15 mated together will
also produce no Colourpoint because they carry no Longhair. But a
Shorthair Black in Square 4 mated to a Shorthair Black in Square 10 will
produce one Colourpoint in sixteen. If now a Colourpoint is mated to a Longhair carrier of the Siamese
coat pattern: 
giving fertilized eggs and kittens:
LLBP Black Longhair carriers of the Siamese pattern LLPP Colourpoints
Thus the use of one Colourpoint parent increases the expectation of
Colourpoints in the progeny to half of the offspring.
Since it is impossible to tell by the external appearance whether, say,
a Longhair Black carries Colourpoint or not, there are obvious
29
COLOURPOINT FEMALE COLOURPOINT MALE
LLSS LLSS
The eggs will all be: The sperms will all be:
LONGHAIR BLACK CARRIER X LONGHAIR BLACK CARRIER
FEMALE MALE
LLBP LLBP
The eggs will be: The sperms will be:
COLOURPOINT FEMALE X LONGHAIR BLACK CARRIER
OF SIAMESE PATTERN MALE
(Photograph 20)
LLPP LLBP
The eggs will all be: The sperms will be:
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
practical difficulties to the breeder. But such a cat descended from one
Colourpoint parent, or which produces at any time one Colourpoint
offspring, is then known to be a carrier. The matings just described can all occur naturally without the
intervention of Man wherever Longhair cats and Siamese have
opportunity for mating. That Colourpoints do not turn up so very often
in this way is understandable since the chances are only 1:16 when two
carriers meet for the F2 generation. But the chances of a Colourpoint
turning up without human direction increases with time and additional
generations of carriers, as shown above. Colourpoints have in fact
turned up in several parts of the world where Siamese and Longhair cats
coexist. They have been found in Scotland, Cornwall, Devon, Kenya and
probably lots of other places, and the first Colourpoint owned by Mr
Stirling-Webb was a stray found in a churchyard. No owner could be
found. Had such a cat been purposely bred it would surely have been of
great value to the owner as being the first of its kind in this country.
There is no difference whatever in the natural occurrence of
Colourpoints and in those produced by controlled matings, as far as the
basic nature of the cats is concerned. But the chances of finding a
Colourpoint of type so good as to be worthy of a championship is as
unlikely as the finding of a champion type Chinchilla in the wild.
30
4. Type and eye colour in Colourpoints and
their inheritance
Having produced a Colourpoint purposely, or having found one that has
turned up by accidental matings, the 'type' of these cats does not come
up to the standard expected by the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy
in Britain today. The nose is too long and straight (Colour photograph
X), the face too narrow (Photograph 35), the ears too large and set too
much on top of the head (Photographs 4, 34), the legs and tail are too
long, the paws too dainty and the coat too short (cf. Colour
photographs I-VII, Photographs 1-3, 11-13, 17, 18). There are various ways in which the type can be improved, that is
altered towards the Persian or Longhair type, with short, welldemarcated
nose, round head, wide face, small, outwardly directed ears, 'cobby'
body and short legs and tail, with large feet and a very full coat up to
five inches or so in length (Colour photographs I-VIII, Photographs 8, 9,
13, 17, 18, 19, 21), which is the aim of progressive Colourpoint breeding
in England. The object of such breeding is to produce a cat similar in
type to the finest Persian or Longhair (Photograph 14), but exhibiting the
Siamese colour pattern, in other words a colour variety of the Persian or
Longhair cat (Colour photograph V). Within the same litter of Colourpoint kittens there may be
considerable individual variation, or there may not, even when the
parents are very similar. Much work has been done on the variation
which occurs within a 'pure line' of animals and plants, and for this it has
been useful to take characters which can be measured precisely, such as
height or weight. Within one pure line the number of individuals in the population
which show the extremes, in say height or weight, is small compared
with the much larger number which approach the average in these
features. The distribution of these characters among the population of
one pure line is shown by Graph A.
31
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Normal distribution of height or weight in the population of one pure line.
If now we breed from individuals chosen from the extreme ends of
such a range, using, say, the tallest or the heaviest individuals for
mating, and repeat the process, selecting at each generation for the most
extreme individuals for further breeding. The distribution of height or
weight within the ensuing population can be graphically represented as
before (Graph B). 
32
The effect of selective breeding for extreme height or weight in one pure line.
TYPE AND EYE COLOUR IN COLOURPOINTS
11 THE CREAM OF BRITISH COLOURPOINTS IN 1969
Above: Ch. Mingchiu Tinka in her first adolescent winter coat, the winning female
at the National Cat Club show in London, December 1967.
111 Below: Ch. Mingchiu Chirk, a Blue-point male with wide short nose, wide top of
The peak showing the largest number of similar individuals lies nearer
to the original extreme, but the range does not go beyond it. In other
words, selection within a pure line has not really produced anything
new but has only altered the proportion of individuals of the different
weights or heights, within the community. Now what is the bearing of this on the breeding of Colourpoints?
With the object of improving the type, Colourpoint has been bred to
Colourpoint, for a number of generations, selecting from each batch of
kittens the better looking ones for further breeding. The results of many
years of selective breeding along these lines is seen in the average
Himalayan cat of America today, which cannot compete successfully
with the best British Colourpoints bred along different lines. The type
produced by the selective method is inferior to that which can be
produced in the same amount of breeding time but along the lines
described below. The simple examples of variation within pure lines
given above are not exactly applicable to the much more complex
genetical composition of Colourpoints, but the broad principles are
somewhat the same. It is not at all surprising that selective breeding
from Colourpoint to Colourpoint matings has produced no greater
strides in improvement in type over a few years. It is true that in certain
varieties of cat spectacular changes appear to have resulted from
selection, alone, but over very many years. The Chinchilla appears to
have the same basic genetical make up as the Silver Tabby, and may
have arisen by selection therefrom (Robinson, 19591). Our fashionable
and very long nosed Siamese, which are not admired by all, are the result
of selection on the part of breeders and judges. The selection making
this trend has already been overdone (Hindley, 1967)' and the lower jaw
has usually not kept pace with the elongation of the face above it. The more productive way of improving type in Colourpoints is by
outcrossing to the best type Persian cat that can be obtained, say a
Black or Blue Longhair (Photograph 14 and see below). At this point it
becomes desirable to relinquish the symbols L, S, B and P used above
for the sake of simplicity, and turn to those which represent the
genetical make up of various varieties of cats more precisely and
'Robinson, R., 1959, 'Genetics of the domestic cat', Bibliogr. Genet. 18, 273-
362,
3 figs, 15 tabs.
2Hindley, G., 1967, Siamese Cats, Past and Present, London.
c
33
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
in more detail. The symbols adopted from here onwards are those in
common use, for example by Robinson and by Searle.' A Shorthair Black
can be represented by aa, a Longhair Black by an additional pair of
genes 11, the genetical composition of this cat becoming aa 11 for the
factors under consideration .2 A Colourpoint is represented by aallcscs,
the last two symbols representing the genes determining the Siamese
coat pattern. Let us mate together:
The fertilized eggs will be aallcS- in composition, there being no fellow
for the gene cs, its absence being indicated by the -. The F 1 kittens will
all be Longhair Blacks carrying the Siamese colour pattern (Photograph
16). It so happens that the carriers are often much finer in type than the
Colourpoint parent, although some are no better. A few are as fine as
any other Persian of the same variety, e.g. Ch. Mingchiu, Magog
(Photograph 20), a Black Longhair carrier, who has been unbeaten on
the show bench by any other Black, either as a kitten or as an adult.
Such carriers are invaluable for Colourpoint breeding, but must not be
used to excess, or too much eye colour is lost (see below).
'Robinson, R., 1959, 'Genetics of the domestic cat', Bibliogr, Genet. 18, 273-362,
3 figs, 15 tabs. Searle, A. G., 1968, comparative Genetics of Coat Colour in Mammals, Logos Press Academic Press i-xii. 1-308.
2It should be noted that the genes BB on the preceding pages stand for solid or self
colour, Black being taken as an example. The basic colour Black in the Longhair
and Shorthair varieties is probably determined by several pairs of genes which need
not be considered here. The gene symbol aa means the recessive Non-agouti
determinant, which converts the wild Tabby type to Black.
34
TYPE AND EYE COLOUR IN COLOURPOINTS
giving fertilized eggs and kittens: aallcScS and aallcS- which are
respectively Colourpoint and Black Longhairs carrying Colourpoint, in
equal numbers on the average. The type of these Colourpoints varies
from one to another, but some are a substantial improvement on the
Colourpoint parent, but again on the average, and not necessarily so in
every litter. Eleven litters actually obtained:
(1) 2 Colourpoints, 2 Blacks
(Photograph 16)
(2) 2 Blacks
(3) 2 Blacks, 1 Blue
(4) 1 Colourpoint, 1 Blue
(5) 2 Colourpoints
(6) 2 Colourpoints
(7) 3 Colourpoints, 1 Black
(8) 2 Colourpoints
(9) 1 Blue, 1 Black
(10) 3 Colourpoints, 1 Black
(11) 5 Colourpoints
The greater number of our finest Colourpoints have been produced
thus from one parental Self-coloured carrier, either a Blue or a Black
(Photograph 20). Mr B. A. Stirling-Webb's well-known Colourpoint
stud, Ch. Briarry Euan, was produced from the mating of two carriers, a
Longhair Black and a Longhair Blue, hence his excellence in type. Ch.
Mingchiu Tinka (Colour photograph 11), the winning Colourpoint
female at the National Show, London, 1967, where some forty
Colourpoints were exhibited, was bred from a Black Longhair dam and
sired by a Colourpoint. Gr. Ch. Mingchiu Pearlas of Harobed, for three
seasons winner of 'All Eastern Himalayan and American Honorable
Mention Blue-point' is out of a Colourpoint dam by a Blue Longhair
carrier, her litter brother being
35
COLOURPOINT FEMALE X LONGHAIR BLACK MALE
aallcScS aall
The eggs will all be: The sperms will all be:
Next, let us mate together:
COLOURPOINT MALE X LONGHAIR BLACK CARRIER
(e.g. Ch. Mingchiu. Polo FEMALE
Photograph lb) (e.g. Woods Amber)
aallcscs aallcS- The
sperms will all be: The eggs will be of two kinds:
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Ch. Mingchiu Polo (Photographs 1, 24). One cannot count on such
outstanding kittens as these at every breeding. Between 1963 when Polo
and Pearlas were born and 1967 when Chou-lu (Photographs 13, 17, 18)
was born to the same dam, I had no other such outstanding kitten from
her when she was bred to a number of different studs. The Blue
Longhair carrier, Briarry Valparago, belonging to Mr Stirling-Webb and
sire of Polo and Pearlas , was dead, and not until Ch. Mingchiu Shan
was grown to maturity did I find a suitable mate for this female, Briarry
Jehane. The reason for the improvement in type obtained in the manner
described above is that the outcrossing to the Self-coloured Longhair or
Persian brings in many more of the genes, not considered above, which
control the finer characteristics of body conformation and coat which
cannot be obtained, or may be obtained only very slowly, by endless
mating of Colourpoint to Colourpoint. Such genes can be introduced
from outside. Selection must also be exercised on the Self-coloured
carriers, and only those of finest type should be used for further
breeding. It has been stated in Cats magazine, May 1968, that because the
Himalayan was originally produced from Persians combined with
Siamese, therefore the end product is not any more Persian than
Siamese. The fallacy of this statement is easily demonstrated. When a
Siamese is mated to a Persian the genetical make up of the kittens is on
average 50 per cent Siamese and 50 per cent Persian. If an outcross is
made between these kittens and a Persian or Longhair of excellent type,
the ensuing kittens will be only 25 per cent Siamese in their make up. At
a second outcross of the same nature the Siamese component of the
offspring will be 12-5 per cent, at a third outcross this component will be
6-25 per cent, at a fourth outcross 3-175 per cent, etc. It is clear that with
a small number of outcrosses, not necessarily consecutive (there can be
Colourpoint to Colourpoint matings in between) the Siamese component
of Colourpoints becomes very small indeed. It is the aim of the Mingchiu
cattery to carry on with Mr Stirling Webb's intention to produce
Colourpoints whose genetical make up comprises say 99-9 per cent for
Persian or Longhair type and 0-1 per cent for the Siamese colour pattern.
All Persian cats carry genes determining colour, there is no such thing
as a cat without colour or dominant white genes. Colour or colour
36
TYPE AND EYE COLOUR IN COLOURPOINTS
pattern is not linked with the genetical attributes of Longhair or
Shorthair cats. Claims have been made in the USA that outcrossing to Persians has
produced no improvement in Himalayan type. But intense surprise has
been registered there at the unexpected full Persian appearance of
Mingchiu Blue and Black carriers! It is useless to outcross to
Selfcoloured Persians, carriers or otherwise, unless their type is superb,
because if this is not so, no progress will result. A superb black carrier is
seen in Photograph 20. And the cumulative effect of outcrossing to Self-
coloured Longhairs is plainly shown by the photographs (Photographs
6, 7) of Mingchiu Roy and of Ch. Mingchiu Obel as kittens, aged 6 and 7
months respectively, and therefore both at the stage showing relatively
large ears; later the body grows to 'fit' the cars (Colour photograph IV).
Both kittens have nice type, but that of Obel is decidedly the better, with
great face width, short nose, round eyes far apart, etc. Roy's ancestry
has four outcrosses to either Self-coloured Longhair (Persians) or Self-
coloured carriers and Obel has six such outcrosses in her pedigree. This
is the sort of improvement in type which can be obtained in a small span
of breeding time. Note also the enormous improvement in type from that
of the 1960 litter shown in Photograph 35 to the kittens bred nine years
later, Photograph 36. The photographs illustrate very well the change in the conformation
of the nose and face resulting from this type of breeding. Long straight
noses are seen in Colour photograph X and Photograph 12. A less long
nose but with an even curved profile (Photograph 32), at one time
characterized many of our Colourpoints, and breeders who mated
Colourpoint to Colourpoint claimed that nothing other than this could
be achieved. But now the short, wide nose with a good break at the
bridge is expected in our best (Colour photographs I, Ill, IV,
Photographs 22, 23). Ch. Mingchiu Ghunti has an outstandingly wide
short nose (Colour photograph VII), as is required for a good Longhair
or Persian. The whole face is shorter and wider than in the early
Colourpoints (cf. Photographs 12 and 13). The chin is firm and does not
slope backwards below the upper jaw (Photographs 1, 3, 11, 24). The ears of many Colourpoints are still too large, even if the top of
the head is good, as in Photograph 10, or the ears may be too open
37
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
at the base (Photograph 34), but they are improving. Kittens with small
ears at 2 months (Photograph 8) have relatively large ears by the age of
about 4 months (Photographs 4, 5), but thereafter the body grows more
rapidly and the ears do not increase (cf. Photograph 6 and Colour
photograph IV). Nice small ears, well directed outwards, leaving a wide
top to the head are well shown by Ch. Mingchiu Polo (Photographs 1a,
b), and the photos of the same cat at various ages illustrate the way in
which these features develop in the individual. Well-set good type ears
are seen in the kittens in Photographs 5, 6, 7 and in the adult cat in
Colour photograph IV; contrast these with Photograph 4, showing
kittens with much too large and upright ears leaving a narrow top to the
head. These two kittens looked better when older, but they were not
budding champions and they lack the face width seen in Photographs 5,
6, 23. The Black Longhair carriers (Photograph 16), are younger and
show very nice short faces, small, well-set ears and good width between
the eyes. These characteristics are also well illustrated by the very fine
Colourpoint kittens in Photographs 8 and 9. The older kitten carries the
darker wider mask, but both show the wide face, good ears and top of
head, short nose with a good break, firm chin, etc., all of which are the
aims of Colourpoint breeding. The kitten in Photograph 2, later a
champion, lacked so good a top to the head as seen in Photographs 9
and 18, but she had a most magnificent long coat. By these means the
type of Mingchiu Colourpoints today has reached a new level which is
decidedly ahead of the results of selection from Colourpoint to
Colourpoint matings. It is no accident that the winning males of the Colourpoint Open class
at the National Show have been superseded in four consecutive years
by younger and finer ones: Ch. Mingchiu Shan in 1965, Ch. Mingchiu
Kamet in 1966, Ch. Mingchiu Chou-Lu in 1967 (Photographs 3, 17, 18)
and Ch. Mingchiu Mudoba in 1968 (Colour photographs 1, V). But the
older boys are not by any means on the shelf, for Shan is the sire of
Chou-Lu. No finer demonstration of the efficacy of the methods
described above, for improvement in type, can be found than in the
results of the British 1967-8 show season. Cats from the Mingchiu
cattery have taken almost all of the Open classes for adults, '1st and Ch.'
for the whole season, sixteen shows in all. And this has been won in
spite of a greater number of both Colour
38
TYPE AND EYE COLOUR IN COLOURPOINTS
points and exhibitors at these shows than in previous years. And the USA provides similar results. Ch. Mingchiu. Sebastian is the C.F.A. 'best
of breed' and also 'best of colour in the Seal-points' for the North
Atlantic Region 1968, while his brother Ch. Mingchiu Murdock
(Photographs 21a, b) has been scored the 1968 'Gulf Shore Region Best
Himalayan', also by the C.F.A. For the 1968-9 season Murdock, with his
more mature mask (Photograph 21b) was Best Seal-point Himalayan and
B.0.X. Himalayan for the All Southern Region. Both of these cats have
anything but equal quantities of Siamese and Persian genes, if they had
they would not meet with such approval by the judges! Further, Gr. Ch.
Mingchiu Pearlas of Harobed has maintained her position as a top-
scoring Himalayan for the Eastern Region of the USA for several
successive seasons, besides gaining All-American awards. The deep-blue eye seen in Siamese, Birmans and some Colourpoints
is controlled by genes which are incompletely linked with those
determining the long straight nose. It is easy to get this deep-blue
colour in Colourpoints when the nose is too long and straight for a good
type Longhair (Colour photograph X). Very many of the early
Colourpoints had such eyes. Many of the long-nosed American
Himalayans also possess the good eye colour, and for the same reason.
But with progressive breeding for improvement in type of Colourpoints
the eye in most cases loses the good blue (Colour photograph II). This
shows up even in the genetical segregation taking place in the formation
of one litter, the best typed kitten with a short, well-demarcated nose,
usually has poorer eye colour than the siblings who may not be so
'good looking'. The apparent colour of the eye of a cat, or of any other mammal,
ordinarily depends upon the iris. In bright light the pupil in the middle of
the iris is small and the iris itself is expanded so that its coloration is
visible. In dim light extreme dilatation of the pupil renders the iris almost
invisible. Pigment is situated in the iris, and, invisibly from the outside,
in other parts of the eyeball as well (retina and choroid). Pigment lying in
the outer epithelium of the iris may be the only colouring matter present,
but nearly always there are pigment cells also in the substance (stroma)
of the iris, which contain various amounts of melanin (a dark brown
pigment), coloured oils, or guanin and related substances, which give
metallic appearances of silver,
39
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
gold or colours due to interference or partial absorption of light. As
often as not the colour of an iris depends both on pigments and on
interference phenomena. A vivid eye colour may be due to absorption of certain wavelengths
of light in the superficial layers of the iris, together with differential
reflection of only some of the remaining wavelengths, the rest being
absorbed in the deeper tissues of the iris. The green spots on a frog's
skin and the blue eye of a cat are produced in this way, not by either
green or blue pigments. In blue eyes the brown pigment lying over the internal (hinder) face of
the iris is the only pigment present in the iris. The apparent blueness is
caused by optical effects similar to those which make veins, containing
dark red blood, appear blue when seen through white skin. Brown and
black eyes result from pigment being situated in the substance of the
iris. In an albino the pigment is lacking in both the iris and the retina, so
that the pink blood vessels become visible through the tissues, resulting
in an iris which appears to be pink'. It is much more difficult to establish good type than good eye colour.
The inheritance of eye colour is not simple, and does not appear to be
determined by the same genes in all varieties of cats possessing blue
eyes. The blue in Colourpoints is recessive, as in man, thus good blue
must be carried visibly or invisibly (homozygous or heterozygous) by
both parents if there is to be any chance of good blue occurring in the
offspring. But it is useless to try to make progress in Colourpoint
breeding by selecting from the progeny of two blue-eyed, long-nosed
Colourpoints. The result is seen in large numbers of American
Himalayans as well as in our own experimental breeding. Good type must
be established first and the eye colour can be attended to later. The colour of the eyes of Colourpoints descended directly from Self-
coloured Longhair carriers is often, but not always, poor. Both Ch.
Mingchiu Tinka and Ch. Mingchiu Obel (Colour photographs 11, IV)
have black Longhair mothers and pale eye colour. The blue, however,
can be restored by subsequent Colourpoint to Colourpoint
'A fine account of eyes can be found in Walls, G. L., 1942, The Vertebrate Eye
and its Adaptive Radiation, Cranbrook Inst. Sci. U.S.A. 19. i-xiv, 1-785, 197
textfigs.
40
GROWTH OF TYPE AND EARS
Compare with Photographs 4-7 opposite p. 25.
Above: Gr. Ch. Mingchiu Nootka of Pic's, a Blue-pointed female at 2 months
showing the small ears and inextensive mask typical of young kittens, the fine
type and coat. Below: A fine Blue-pointed kitten bred by Mrs M. Wright, aged 4
 10 TYPE IN MALES
Ch. Mingchiu Choc at 2 years, with fine coat, intensely blue eyes, ears a little too
 Ch. Mingchiu Ghunti in his first winter coat which is longer than that of some 11
subsequent winters (cf. Colour photograph VII), note his very wide short nose
and small, well-set cars.
 12 NINE YEARS OF PROGRESS
An early breeding Colourpoint in the Mingchiu cattery at 8 months 1958
Compare with Photograph 13 opposite p. 72.
TYPE AND EYE COLOUR IN COLOURPOINTS
matings. E.g. Ch. Mingchiu Chou-lu (Photograph 3), the winning
Colourpoint at the National Show 1967 has very good blue eyes, in spite
of his black grandmother, who gave him his fine type. His eye colour
exceeds that of his mother and father. Eye colour in Ch. Mingchiu
Mudoba is finer still (Colour photograph 1). The cause of the loss of the
blue eye colour on outcrossing to a Self-coloured Persian or Longhair is
simply the acquisition of pigment in the substance and front surface of
the iris, but not to the full extent as to give an orange colour to the eye.
It is undesirable to make a series of successive outcrosses to Self-
coloured Longhairs because so much of the visual blue eye colour is
lost thereby. A fine blue can best be produced by mating cats together which each
carry good eye colour (Colour photographs I, Ill, V, IX). Kittens from a
pair of Colourpoints, each with deep-blue eyes, will not all be the same
in this respect, a range of intensity turning up, with only an occasional
outstanding deep-blue-eyed cat. But deep blue can arise from less blue-
eyed parents, e.g. Ch. Mingchiu Choc (Photograph 10), with intense
blue eyes, arose from Mingchiu Snuff (Chocolate-point) and Briarry
Tromo (Seal-point), neither of whom had more than pale blue eyes. It is
not true that intensity of blue eye colour is linked with intensity of
points colour, as sometimes stated. Intensely blue eyes can be obtained
with Chocolate (Colour photograph IX) and Lilac-points, although the
eye colour of these varieties is often pale (Colour photograph XII). Good blue eyes in Colourpoints can also be obtained by outcrossing
to Siamese, but after that step (Photograph 31), many generations of
breeding are needed to eliminate the Siamese characteristics, thereby
brought in, and to restore the Longhair type. But it can be done by this
method. The linkage between the long straight nose and eye colour has
been dissociated in the Mingchiu cattery and the deep-blue eye colour
of the Siamese has been introduced into the short nosed type. The
original purpose of a Siamese outcross concerned the introduction of
the genes for chocolate (brown), as described in Chapters 6 and 7, and
the improvement in eye colour came along with this breeding
programme. We now have Ch. Mingchiu Merle and Ch. Mingchiu
Mudoba (Colour photograph I) with eyes as intensely blue as any
Siamese, combined with a short, welldemarcated nose and good top to
the head which have delighted all
41
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
their judges. The Mingchiu Chocolate and Lilac-points now either have
reasonably good eye colour, or they carry it. Mingchiu Tiree, Seal-point,
has the same blue eyes as Merle and with others has played a large part
in the development of the Chocolate and Lilacpoints in England. It must
be emphasized that progressive breeding of this nature takes much time,
energy and money, because several parallel matings and lines of
breeding must be maintained, but it has produced results. Ch. Mingchiu Chou-Lu, with his cobby body, wide head with short,
well-demarcated nose, very small outwardly directed ears (except when
he pricks them), firm chin, short tail and legs, pale body colour, dark
points, fine blue eyes, soft silky coat five inches in length on the back,
flanks and frill and longer on the short brush, has pressed our finest
specimens of other Longhair varieties very hard for the highest honour
of best Longhair cat in show, and he is not the only one to do this. An
outstanding grandson of the blue-eyed Mingchiu Tiree has improved
upon Chou-Lu. Mingchiu Mudoba has won his adult open class and a
championship certificate every time shown, seven occasions during the 1968-9 season. He has pressed the nominees for best Longhair cat in
show in progressive measure with increase in age, and became runner
up and finally the winner of this highest and most coveted award in
March 1969 at the age of only 131 months. Colourpoint kittens have on several occasions also achieved the
highest placing. Out of the first ten shows of the 1967-8 season a
Colourpoint kitten has been best Longhair kitten in show on five
occasions, three different kittens making these wins. As there are at
least 14 different varieties of Longhairs it seems that Colourpoints have
either won more than their share or that their quality has been
outstanding. The above achievements of cats and kittens indicate the progress that
has been made in a short span on the lines of breeding here described.
The present and future development of the different colours of the
points is considered in Chapters 6-8. Colourpoints, however fine they may be genetically, may not be
magnificent in appearance all the year round, or even at all, because a
fine coat growth is seasonal at best, and may not occur when the cat
lives indoors under unsuitable conditions of heat and dryness and
42
TYPE AND EYE COLOUR IN COLOURPOINTS
lack of exercise, etc. Generally the coat is shed once a year, usually in the
spring, and a new coat is grown by the following winter. A moult once
started is not hindered by weather, and cold following the onset of a
moult usually will not stop it. Some cats moult early in the winter,
regularly in December for Ch. Mingchiu Monique, and others do not
start until February or March. The adolescents mostly moult at the age
of about a year, regardless of the seasons. Some Colourpoints moult
slowly, hair by hair, over a long period and at all times have quite
impressive coats. Others moult heavily at one time, and go through a
period of being short, almost as short as a Shorthair, on head and
shoulders. Many of the Mingchiu cats are in this state in September and
it takes them until December or later to reach a full coat. Some fine cats
during their first adult summer appear to shed much of their good type
as well as coat, a most disconcerting phenomenon for the owner. But
they regain their good looks later on. Thus, at the beginning of the show
season in August to November, the mature cats are not enough in coat
to 'show', and the prizes go to the adolescents just over 9 months of
age, so qualifying as adults, before their first moult sets in. A moult in
which a considerable area of hair falls out completely, or is scratched off
by the cat, spells ruination to the next coat, because the denuded skin
becomes cold and the new growth is very dark in colour, giving local,
most undesirable, dark patches. These are not permanent and the pale
colour can be restored at the next moult. Often the hair becomes
bleached before falling out, or individual hairs may become banded,
giving an undesirable brindling to the mask and tail. Brindling can also
be caused by W health. In the case of females, one cannot have both coat and kittens. If a
Colourpoint breeds young and keeps it up, the nature of her potential
coat may never show until she gives herself a break in the autumn or
late summer from the production of kittens, this being a time of year
when the coat will grow if unhampered by maternity. Briarry Jehane is
such a cat, and in her sixth year she grew a frill and a long silky coat for
the first time, a coat that would have gained her a championship in her
youth had she grown it then. The names of many of the Briarry cats aptly express either their
characters or indicate progress or otherwise towards improvement in
type. There were Swashbuckler and Bizbod, whose names appear in
43
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
the background on many pedigrees. The disappointing girl Uglia, with
the accent on the i, was the daughter of Ugly. By contrast the queen Far
Neerah was a decided step in the right direction. There is great scope for
ingenuity in the naming of cats! The initial mixing of the genes for Longhair and Siamese has, by
means of selection and outcrossing to Longhairs, given rise to the best-
typed Colourpoint, which by 1969 is almost entirely Longhair in its
genetical make up for type. It is equally possible to select in the
opposite direction and to outcross to Siamese and thereby to produce a
Longhair cat possessing say 99-9 per cent of genes for Siamese type
and colour pattern and 0- 1 per cent for Longhair coat. The American
Balinese cat appears to be roughly such a cat, but none have been bred
in England by 1969. A middle course can also be adopted, and with the
addition of the genes for white feet (see p. 81), the result is a Birman.
However, it must not be supposed that it is equally simple to produce a
cat with any. desired combination of characters. When genes are
located on the same bearer, or chromosome, the phenomena of linkage,
partial linkage, sex linkage, etc. occur, so that the type of segregation of
genes, which takes place before each new generation of cats is
produced, differs from that described above. What may be expected of Colourpoint breeding of the future? In the
Mingchiu cattery and in others it will go along the same lines as
described above. Further improvement in type is to be expected, so that
in a few years the average well-bred Colourpoint will be like our very
best today. It has been stated outside England that Colourpoints (Himalayans)
cannot be propagated indefinitely without outcrossing to Siamese,
because the body becomes dark and indistinguishable from the points.
Colourpoints have been bred in Richmond, Surrey for more years than in
any other part of the world. The Mingchiu cats all have singularly pale
body colour, such as is sought after the world over, and their ancestry
shows not one outcross to Siamese except in respect of the Chocolate
and Lilac-points. There are various ways of getting the undesirable dark
body colour, indoor dry heat of a high level is one of them, and drinking
water affecting the thyroid gland may be -another. All Seal and Blue-
pointed Colourpoints darken slightly on the body in the second winter,
and to different degrees in different individuals. Rarely the coat remains
entirely pale, as in Ch.
44
TYPE AND EYE COLOUR IN COLOURPOINTS
Mingchiu Monique, who at 8 years of age was as pale as at 8 months
(Photograph 22). When the points are deeply pigmented slight
darkening on the body after the age of 2 years is in order, but when the
points are lightly pigmented a darkening of the body leaves insufficient
contrast between points and trunk (Colour photograph VII). Some of
the winter darkening is dispelled in the following summer, but usually a
little remains. occasionally kittens are born with much darker coats than the
average. These occur sporadically, or rarely whole litters may be dark in
body colour. In examples that have passed through the Mingchiu and
Briarry catteries the darkening has passed away entirely, and by late
kittenhood the coat has become pale as in the average kitten or adult. It
should be noted that other varieties of cat show curious and temporary
kitten coats. Longhair Black kittens are occasionally black, but usually
they are brownish or grey, at least in part. As a kitten Mingchiu Meg, a
Colourpoint carrier, had a black face, legs and tail and the body coat was
grey tipped with silver. She was most striking, like a black kitten hidden
in a silver muff, but it all passed away when she moulted to a good adult
black all over. An outcrossing to Siamese is the last thing to be recommended in
breeding Colourpoints because so much type is lost thereby, and a
large number of subsequent generations of selective breeding is
required to eliminate the unwanted Siamese characters brought in by
such a mating. Factors for the blue eye may be introduced this way, but
at a great loss of type. The standard of points recognized for Colourpoints in Britain by the
Governing Council of the Cat Fancy follows the original aim of the
breeders to produce a Longhair (or Persian) cat with the Siamese colour
pattern.
The Standard for the Colourpoint Longhair Cat
Coat: Fur long, thick and soft in texture; frill full. Colour to be Seal,
Blue, Chocolate or Lilac-pointed, with appropriate body colour
as for Siamese (i.e. cream, glacial white, ivory or magnolia).
Points to be of solid colour, and body shading, if any, to tone
with the points. (Colour photographs 1, 111, Photographs 2, 3,
13, 17, 18, 23). (The Red and Tortie-pointed Colourpoints have not been recognized yet).
45
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Head: Broad and round with width between ears. Short face and short
nose, with a distinct break or stop. Ears small and tufted and
cheeks well developed (Photographs 1, 9, 18, 21, 23).
Eyes: Shape: large, round and full. Colour: clear, bright and decidedly
blue (Colour photographs I-VII, Photographs 1, 34).
Body: Cobby and low on leg (Colour photographs V, VIII and XI).
Tail: Short and full, not tapering. A kink shall be considered a
defect (Colour photographs 11, V, VIII and XI).
N.B. Any similarity in type to Siamese, particularly a long straight nose,
to be considered most undesirable and incorrect.
Coat 15
Points and body colour 10
Head 30
Shape of eye 10
Colour of eye 10
Body 15
Tail 10
It is seen that the number of marks given to eye colour is far less than
those given for type. It is very easy to breed a Colourpoint of poor type
with a long nose, but a bright blue eye, and much less easy to produce a
good blue eye with the best type. The only satisfactory procedure is to
work for good type first and the eye colour can be attended to later. The
attractiveness of the good blue eye combined with the finest coat and
Persian type is great, and worth all the work in breeding that will achieve
it. No mention is made in the G.C.C.F. Standard of the colours of the
pads on the feet. This feature is out of place in any standard because
the colours change during the life of the cat, there is much variation, and
the colour of the points cannot be ascertained by inspection of the
pads. There is also no mention of any dark mark on the belly. A standard
should emphasize the important features of conformation
46
TYPE AND EYE COLOUR IN COLOURPOINTS
and colour, and it should never provide loopholes for judgment of cats
upon features such as pad colour and other unimportant features
instead of the much more difficult items of type. The simple standard of
the G.C.C.F. has been accepted by all European countries. If universal
standards are called for, no approval from Europe can be expected for
the elaborate and in part erroneous standards to be found in America.
47
5. Hybrids, mutations and the status of the
Colourpoint Longhair Cat
Strictly speaking, it is quite wrong to apply the term 'hybrid' to a cross
between two varieties of the same species, such as a Siamese and a
Longhair cat. The term hybrid is not misused in respect of many other
domestic animals, so why should it be misused by cat fancies? A hybrid
is the F I (first filial generation) resulting from the mating between two
different species, and is usually sterile, e.g. a mule resulting from the
mating of a horse and a donkey. Still more wrong is the application of the
term hybrid to a Colourpoint. The F3, F4, F 5, F 6, etc. generations from
an original cross between two varieties of one species, and selected
heavily at each generation in favour of one of the original varieties, leads
to the almost total exclusion of the other. A good type Colourpoint is as
Persian or Longhair as any other colour variety of such cats, but has the
gene for a coat pattern existing elsewhere only in the Birman and
Siamese. The latter is called a 'Foreign' type in England as opposed to
the 'British Shorthair' which possesses a short coat, but otherwise
opposite characters. The Siamese colour pattern could be introduced
into the 'British' type with its round face, stocky body, etc. just as it has
been introduced into the Longhair. The genetical make up of the ideal
Colourpoint, towards which we are now closely approaching, is one with
nothing but Persian or Longhair genes besides those controlling the
appearance of the colour pattern. No cat fancy wants to call a Blue
Persian a 'hybrid' because the colour blue occurs also in both 'British'
and 'Foreign' Shorthairs. Yet such a move would be no more ridiculous
than the practice of calling a Himalayan's 'hybrid'. It is all but
unbelievable that at the present day responsible bodies, which lay down
the laws of the cat fancies, should be so ignorant of the well established
facts of animal breeding as to make such blunders, and thereby to
hamstring the breeding of Colourpoints or Himalayans in their countries. The worship, in certain quarters, of many similar successive
48
IV THE CREAM OF BRITISH COLOURPOINTS IN 1969
Above: Ch. Mingchiu Obel, female Seal-point whose type is unsurpassed, is at 12
months in Summer. Her mask is not fully developed and her coat is less well
groomed
than in Colour photograph 111.
V Below: Ch. Mingchiu Mudoba showing his cobby body, short legs, short tail and
large frill (see also Colour photograph 1).
HYBRIDS, MUTATIONS AND STATUS OF COLOURPOINT
generations of cats is another real hindrance to progressive breeding of
Colourpoints or of Himalayans. The idea stems from not understanding
that a cat with visible recessive characters is pure for those characters,
and no further generations can make it any purer. Further generations of
the same simply result in time wasted in maintaining the existing facies
of Himalayan or Colourpoint, as within a pure line (see above p. 31),
without much progress towards the full Persian or Longhair type. Further, it is not sufficiently appreciated that absolute purity of
breeding stock cannot be obtained, however many generations may be
recorded in the files of Registrars. We have dealt above with Longhair
cats which carry the gene for Siamese colour pattern, but are otherwise
indistinguishable from other Longhair cats of the same variety which do
not. It is only by outcrossing these carriers to suitable mates that the
existence of the recessive genes is disclosed. In the breeding of
pedigree stocks of our domestic varieties it is not customary to make
outcrosses between widely different varieties, such as Longhair and
Shorthair. And unless such crosses are made, no indication is given as
to the presence or absence of recessive genes. Owners and registrars
just do not know if they are present or not. In other words, hundreds of
generations can pass and the animals may be believed to be 'pure bred'.
Nobody dreams of calling, say, a pedigree Black champion a 'hybrid'
because he may or may not carry some unknown recessive genes not
shown on the pedigree. All our pedigree stocks might be labelled
'hybrids' if the possible presence of recessive genes was considered. To give but one concrete example: Many generations of
distinguished Siamese cats have been recorded by a cat fancy forming
the pedigree of a well-known champion. For reasons unconnected with
perpetuating first rate Siamese cats, this stud was outcrossed to a
Longhair. Naturally only Shorthair kittens were expected, the stud being
believed to be 'pure'. Actually one Longhair kitten was born, showing
that this 'pure' line of Siamese cats was actually carrying the recessive
gene for Longhair in at least some of its members. Had the outcross
never been made, we should have had no knowledge of the existence of
the recessive gene in the Siamese cat and the stock would have been
considered to be 'pure'. It is impossible to make any meaningful classification or qualifica-
D
49
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
tion of cats showing dominant characters which takes note of the
innumerable recessives which they may or may not be carrying.
Recessive genes which are carried through very many generations in
the heterozygous, or single, state do not become less potent in calling
forth the visible features when these genes have the opportunity to
become homozygous (present in double dose). The idea that genes fade
in potency, when carried through generation numbers of the order used
and known in our breeding programmes, is unfounded upon scientific
facts, although stated to be so by certain breeders who have little
appreciation of genetics and cannot substantiate the claim. Some cat fancies register a Black Longhair cat as such, just as they
register a Siamese, regardless of the possible presence in both of
recessive characters, such as a gene for the Siamese pattern in the
Longhair and a gene for Longhair in the Siamese. It is not logical to draw
a line between the presence of a known recessive character, disclosed
perhaps by some quite unorthodox mating, and the probable presence of
an unlimited and vast array of unknown ones in the cats for registration.
It is quite absurd to call, for example, a Black, Blue or Brown Longhair
carrying the Colourpoint or Siamese coat pattern a 'hybrid' or a
'Himalayan'. Such cats are decidedly not Himalayan, nor are they
hybrids, they are genetically unlike the latter and carry only one gene for
the patterned coat and not two. (They are heterozygous). Yet we have
cat fancies who confuse the issue to such an extent as to classify
Longhair Black, Blue and Brown cats with solid colours (Self-coloured)
as 'Himalayan'. No greater contradiction in terms could be devised, nor a
greater disservice rendered to the breeders. It follows that absolute purity in all characters is almost a fiction,
certainly as far as much of our legislation goes, e.g. on the importation
of 'pure-bred' animals into a country, or the 'purity' of any one variety to
a cat fancy. Attempts have been made over the years to breed mice as
homozygous as possible for all genes, that is to produce absolutely
pure strains. Such mice are useful for many purposes because they are
all alike. But the result is an animal with very low fecundity and, as
generations go by, they become very difficult to breed at all. In the cat fancies the unqualified word 'purity', applied to large
categories or varieties, should be expurgated as meaningless, and in
50
HYBRIDS, MUTATIONS AND STATUS OF COLOURPOINT
place the concept 'pure for, what' should be considered. And, as we
certainly do not want our domestic varieties to become sterile and
almost impossible to breed, we do not want them pure for as many
genes as possible as some cat fancies would like, that would spell
disaster. it is time that cat fancies in general became more familiar with
the facts of animal breeding. It is no use producing legislation contrary
to these facts because the animals will not obey. And the cats will charm
us most when unfettered by ill conceived legislation. Legislation, of
course, we must have, but let it be based upon up-to-date knowledge. It has been shown above how segregation and reassortment of genes
gives rise to varieties of cat which are different from their parents. The
formation of domestic varieties such as Colourpoint (see above) or Self-
chocolate Longhair (see Chapter 7) is due to nothing new, the genes
determining these varieties being present, but their effects masked, in
other existing varieties. This type of origin of new varieties, by a
reshuffle of existing genes, is not at an the same thing as a new variety
arising by a 'mutation'. This term has been misused by cat fancies just as
much as has the word 'hybrid'. A real change in the gene complex of an animal, which is not a
reshuffle of existing genes, sometimes occurs. It can be induced by
radiations, etc., but naturally occurring it is very rare. A mutation of a
gene, as these changes are called, are inherited in the manner already
described for any genetical character. Mutations are usually, but not
always, recessive, and therefore do not usually call forth visible features
unless in double dose (homozygous). A mutation may alter a visible characteristic directly, or it may alter the
growth rates of one part relative to another, and this can bring an
embryonic feature into the post-embryonic life span of a cat. The latter
is the probable explanation of the lop-eared cat, recently bred in
Scotland. The appearance of an unexpected type of kitten does not
necessarily mean that a mutation has occurred, as is not infrequently
claimed in the cat fancy. An example of the misuse of the term 'mutation'
is shown by the following quotation from Cats magazine, Feb. 1968, p.
14: 'The Longhair Manx Mutation is considered a mutant because these
kittens have been born to parents with seven or more complete
generations of registered Manx in their backgrounds .... Since short hair
is said to be dominant over long,
51
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
two longhaired Manx bred to each other-were they not mutationswould
tend to produce some shorthaired kittens. In the case of the Longhaired
Manx mutations this has never happened'. This statement is far from
supporting the view that there has been a mutation for Longhair among
the Manx cats! No pair of longhaired cats, Manx or any other variety,
will 'tend to produce some shorthaired kittens'. Short hair is dominant to
long and if you have long hair at all you have it pure, i.e. homozygous
for long hair. Seven or any other number of generations of Manx is no
proof that some of these cats are not heterozygous for hair length, and
until two Manx cats, each heterozygous for the genes producing long
hair, are mated together, no longhaired Manx will be produced. There is
nothing more remarkable in breeding a longhaired Manx than in
breeding a longhaired kitten from the long line of Siamese mated to a
Longhair noted above p. 49, or in obtaining a Colourpoint by mating two
shorthaired carriers together, e.g. those on Squares 7 and 10 in the table
on p. 27. In Britain the aim of Colourpoint breeding has been, from the
beginning, to produce and develop a Longhair or Persian cat with the
Siamese colour pattern. Therefore no legislative difficulties have been
thrust upon breeders by their cat fancy, since the G.C.C.F. appreciates
the genetical similarity between Colourpoints and other varieties of
Persian or Longhair. If all Colourpoints, are not yet 99-9 per cent Persian
in their genetical make up in 1969, it is only a matter of time before they
may become so. The Self-chocolate and Self-lilac (Frost) Longhairs
(Colour photographs XIII, XIV, XV) will soon claim recognition as two
more colour varieties of Longhair or Persian, when they have passed
through a few more generations. There will be no occasion to regard the
Chocolate (Brown) or Lilac Longhairs as differing in any way, besides
colour, from the Blue (Photograph 14), Black and other coloured
Longhairs. If no Longhair Blues existed, they could easily be made by
introducing the genes for blue dilution from Shorthairs. The genetical
composition of such 'synthetic' Blue Longhair would be identical with
those which are actually in existence. The making of 'synthetic' Blue
Longhair would exactly parallel the breeding programmes which have
actually taken place during the formation of Self-lilac, Self-chocolate and
Colourpoint Longhairs, (see also Chapters 6-8). These three varieties are
52
HYBRIDS, MUTATIONS AND STATUS OF COLOURPOINT
genetically just as much colour varieties of Persian as are any of the
older established colour varieties of Longhair. No such easy and enlightened legislations faces the breeders of
Himalayans in the USA. While the conflicts go on as to whether
Himalayans are Persians, hybrids, something independent or special,
breeders are hampered by legislation which appears to embody no
appreciation of feline genetics. Yet in spite of this the appearance on the
show benches of a few imported Colourpoints of good type has brought
the names of these cats to the annual lists of top scorers for that
continent, for example: Mingchiu Murdock and others for the South,
Mingchiu Tal and Mingchiu Pearlas for the East, Mingchiu Nookka for
the north-west of Canada, Mingchiu Pearlas, also an All-American
winner, Mingchiu Sebastian (see above) and others. Several are Grand
Champions, and in 1969 the leading cattery prefix for the sectional
winners of the north American continent is Mingchiu, with ten wins. The
judges are in no doubt whatever as to what they like best, even if some
cat fancies state that Himalayans are not Persians. It has been said (Cats
magazine, May 1968) that some American breeders of Persian cats do not
want the Himalayan included under the heading of Persian. But it should
be recognized that the nature of existing Himalayans can never be
determined by what some people do or do not want, but only by what
they are, genetically and in fact. It is remarkable that one small garden on the outskirts of London,
which has carried on from the start made by the Briarry cattery, has
produced results reaping world wide acclamation. The sooner it is
appreciated that talk and regulations cannot alter the genetical make up
of the Colourpoints claimed by American judges to be the finest
Himalayans they have handled, the better it will be for American
breeders. Successful competition with Colourpoints will occur when
Himalayans become more fully Persian in their genetical make up.
Whether they do this or not depends upon the aims of the breeders,
how the breeding is carried out and what legislation has to be faced.
English Colourpoints have been imported into Canada and the USA, but
not primarily to provide new blood, as sometimes stated. There is plenty
of new blood on that continent. They are imported because of their
show-bench potential. And every time a Colourpoint of good type is
mated to a Himalayan, the genetically Persian content of the
53
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
progeny is increased, no matter what the legislation may be! American
breeders and cat fancies cannot honestly claim that they can produce a
cat, which their own judges will find superior to top winning Mingchiu
Colourpoints, which is not more than 50 per cent Persian in its genetical
make up. Such a concept is contrary to the facts. If they wish, breeders
of Himalayans could decide not to breed towards the British G.C.C.F.
standard of points for Colourpoints which is accepted by all of Europe,
and make some other kind of cat which does not resemble a Persian in
its conformation. But this step would be in an opposite direction from
the selection being exercised at the present time.
52
6. The inheritance of Seal, Blue, Chocolate and
Lilac colours of the points of Colourpoints
Some of the early Colourpoints in the Briarry cattery were descended
from a Colourpoint found as a stray, Bubastis Georgina, and presumably
produced from chance matings of the type described above. Bubastis
was mated to a Black Longhair, Kala Sabu, invisibly carrying both Blue
and the Siamese colour pattern, and bred by Miss Collins. This cat was
an F 2 descendant from a mating between a Seal-pointed Siamese and an
unregistered Blue Longhair. Sealpoint may be taken as the basic colour
of the Colourpoint coat pattern. The dark brown of the points
corresponds with the Black of the Self-coloured cats (Colour
photographs V, XI, Photograph 20). A Blue-pointed cat has in addition
to the genes controlling the Sealpointed colouring, genes in duplicate
causing a dilution of the seal colour which becomes blue-grey, a colour
called Blue in cats (Colour photographs 111, VII, Photographs 22, 23).
Seal and Blue-pointed cats are seen side by side in Photographs 6, 7, 19.
Blue is described as recessive to Seal, because a cat carrying but one of
the genes for blue dilution is visibly seal-pointed. Since the cats
originally used in Colourpoint breeding include Blue (Photograph 14)
and Black (resembling Photograph 20) Longhairs, the resulting
Colourpoints were both Seal and Blue-pointed. The following symbols, which are in general use, provide a working
representation of the genetical composition of certain varieties of cat of
interest in the present connection. Black Shorthair (Photograph 15)1 aa
Black Longhair (Photograph 20) aall, bearing in addition two genes
for Longhair, 11.
Blue Longhair (Photograph 14) aalldd possesses also a pair of
genes dd causing dilution of the seal
colour to blue.
'The symbol aa really denotes the absence of agouti ticking of the fur, such as is
present in the Tabbies, Abyssinian and Chinchilla cats. The agouti factor is almost
absent in the red points of both Siamese and Colourpoint.
55
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Seal-pointed Colourpoint aallcScS is genetically like the
(Colour Photograph II) Longhair Black, but with the addi
tion of a pair of genes cScS evoking
the Siamese coat pattern.
Blue-pointed Colourpoint aallcScSdd bears in addition the
(homozygous for blue) pair of genes for Blue dilution, dd.
Seal-pointed Colourpoint aallcScSd-, only one gene for Blue
carrying blue dilution being present.
(heterozygous for blue)
The inheritance and segregation of Seal and of Blue-pointed
Colourpoints takes place as shown above, Blue being visual only when
homozygous, in double dose. For example, if two Seal-points carrying
Blue are mated together: 
aallcScSdd aallcScSd- aallcScSd- aallcScS- -
one pure Blue-point two Seal-points carrying one pure Seal-point
blue invisibly
It may be useful to summarize the results of making various
matings between Colourpoints with different coloured points.
Seal-point when pure and mated to any other colour of point will give
only Seal-point progeny. Blue-point mated to Blue-point will give only Blue-point progeny.
A Seal-point carrying blue (e.g. Ch. Mingchiu. Polo (Photograph 1))
and mated to the same (e.g. Briarry Roxana), will give one Blue-point in
four, and three Seal-points being one pure and two carriers of Blue (see
above). Seven litters actually obtained:
56
INHERITANCE OF SEAL, BLUE, CHOCOLATE AND LILAC
(1) 2 Seal-points, 2 Blue-points (5) 4 Seal-points
(2) 4 Seal-points (6) 4 Seal-points
(3) 4 Seal-points, 2 Blue-points (7) 2 Seal-points, 2 Blue-points
(4) 2 Seal-points, 1 Blue-point
A Seal-point carrying Blue and mated to a Blue-point will give half the
progeny Blue-point and half will be Seal-point carrying Blue.
A visual Blue-point is pure for Blue because it will not be visible
unless the gene for Blue dilution is homozygous, in double dose. A
visual Seal-point can be either pure, or it can carry Blue (and/or
Chocolate, see below), and it is possible to differentiate these cats only
by further breeding. The majority of our Seal-points do in fact carry
Blue but not all do so.
Lilac and Chocolate-pointed Colourpoints possess the Chocolate or
Brown gene which occurs also in Chocolate-pointed Siamese and in Self-
Chocolate Shorthairs. The genetical composition of these two varieties
of Colourpoint is:
Chocolate-pointed Colourpoint (Colour photograph IX) aallcScSbb, a
cat resembling the Seal-point genetically, but bearing in addition two
genes for Chocolate (Brown) bb. The colour of the points resembles that
of milk chocolate and is quite distinct from the brown of the Seal-points
(Colour photographs IX, XV).
Lilac-pointed Colourpoint (Colour photograph XII) aallcScSbbdd, results from the addition of the blue dilution gene in duplicate to the
Chocolate-point, the presence of these latter genes turning the
chocolate to lilac just as they dilute the seal to blue. The colour is the
palest of the series, but is quite unlike a pale Blue-point because the
chocolate tone is visible, although diluted (Colour photographs VIII, XII
and XIV). The inheritance and segregation of the colours of the points is not
complex, although it is based upon the additive series of genes listed
above. Chocolate and Lilac segregate just as do the Blue-points, see
above.
Chocolate-point mated to Chocolate-point will give only
Chocolatepointed progeny.
57
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
A Seal-point carrying Chocolate (e.g. Ch. Mingchiu Merle) when mated
to a Chocolate-point (e.g. Ch. Mingchiu Ptan Colour photograph IX),
will give half the progeny Chocolate-point and half Seal-point carriers,
the Chocolate-pointed cats being pure for Chocolate. 
in equal numbers.
A Blue-point carrying Chocolate (e.g. Ch. Mingchiu Chirk) mated to a
Chocolate-point (e.g. Mingchiu Una) will produce half the progeny
with Chocolate points and the other half Seal-point carriers. Two litters
actually obtained: (1) 1 Chocolate-point, 2 Seal-points.
(2) 3 Chocolate-points, 3 Seal-points.
Lilac-point is visual only when the cat is homozygous for both the
Chocolate and the Blue dilution genes, both in double dose.
Lilac-point mated to Lilac-point produces only Lilac-point (Colour
photographs XII, XIV).
Lilac-point (e.g. Mingchiu Sula Three) mated to a Blue-point carrying
Chocolate (e.g. Ch. Mingchiu Chirk (Colour photograph Ill) will
58
INHERITANCE OF SEAL, BLUE, CHOCOLATE AND LILAC
produce half the progeny Lilac-point and half Blue-point carriers of
Chocolate: 
in equal numbers on the average.
One litter actually obtained: 3 Lilac-points., 2 Blue-point carriers.
Lilac-point mated to a Seal-point carrying Blue (e.g. Ch. Mingchiu
Shan) will produce no Lilac-points because the Seal is not carrying
Chocolate, but if the Seal is carrying Chocolate as well as Blue (Ch.
Mingchiu Choc (Photograph 10)), then the progeny will comprise one
Lilac-point, one Blue-point carrying Chocolate, one Chocolate-point
carrying Blue, and one Seal-point carrying both Blue and Chocolate, on
the average.
A male Blue-point carrying Chocolate (e.g. Ch. Mingchiu Chirk (Colour
photograph III)) mated to a female Seal-point carrying both Blue and
Chocolate (e.g. Ch. Mingchiu Merle) will produce four types of eggs
which will be fertilized by two types of sperms. These combinations, if
written out in full, as above, give on the average: I kitten in 8: Lilac-point aallcScSbbdd
3 kittens in 8: Blue-point carrying Chocolate aallcScSb-dd
I kitten in 8: Chocolate-point carrying Blue aallcScSb-dd
kitten in 8: Blue-point, pure aallcScS- -dd
I kitten in 8: Seal-point carrying Blue and
Chocolate aallcScSb-d-
kitten in 8: Seal-point carrying Blue aallcScS- -d-
59
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
which in external appearance are 1 Lilac-point, 4 Blue-points, 1
Chocolate-point and 2 Seal-points. This proportion of colours was
obtained almost exactly in a 1968 litter of seven kittens: 1
Chocolatepoint, 1 Lilac-point, 2 Seal-points, 3 Blue-points.
Lilac-point (Mingchiu Sulafour) mated to a Chocolate-point carrying
Blue (Ch. Mingchiu Ptan (Colour photograph IX)) will give half the
progeny Lilac-pointed and half Chocolate carrying Blue. Litter
actually obtained: 2 Lilac-points, 3 Chocolate-points.
Lilac-point mated to a Chocolate-point of similar appearance but not
carrying Blue will produce only Chocolates carrying Blue.
Colourpoints with Red, Tortie and other coloured points can be
produced by suitable matings (see Chapter 8); America is ahead of
Britain in their production. The chances against these varieties turning
up naturally are rather heavy, but in time they will doubtless appear
both with and without human intervention. The body colour varies according to the colour of the points, as
recognized in the Standard, p. 45, and is darkest with the Seal-points.
But the coats of all coloured points are usually pale up to the second
winter (Colour photographs I, V, VIII, IX, Xl, XII). Then the Sealpoints
usually darken somewhat in the body (Colour photograph X,
Photographs 10, 11, 38 left), but not all do so. Any considerable
darkening of the body in Blue-points tends to destroy the pleasing
contrast between body and points coloration, a condition occurring
more frequently in America than in Britain. A Blue-point retaining the
completely pale body colour, as in Ch. Mingchiu Monique (Photograph
22), at the age of 7 years, is a very attractive cat. The body colour of the
Chocolate and Lilac-points has remained pale (Colour photographs IX,
XII, XIV, XV), summer and winter, during the few years in which these
varieties have been in existence. The account of cat genetics presented here has been given in the
simplest possible terms for an understanding of the practical matters of
Colourpoint breeding. The real picture is somewhat more complex. It has
been mentioned that coat length is determined by not one but many
superimposed genetical factors. The colour chocolate is incompletely
recessive, so that it may 'show through' the Blue-pointed and Seal-
pointed coats of the carriers to some extent. The difference in colour
between a Blue-point carrying chocolate and one that does
60
INHERITANCE OF SEAL, BLUE, CHOCOLATE AND LILAC
not is slight, but it can often just be seen, and similarly for Sealpoints
which do and do not carry chocolate. The practice in certain localities of calling a pale or extreme
sealpointed Himalayan a Chocolate-point and a pale Blue-point a
Lilacpoint is defenceless. There is a range of colour in every category.
The extremes of the Seal or Blue-points are not genetically Chocolate or
Lilac-pointed at all, and they will not breed these colours. The pedigrees
of the cats should show whether there are any real Chocolate or Lilac-
points in the last few generations. These colours are very new, and if the
pedigree shows none of them, nor any of the short-haired Self or
Chocolate-pointed cats from which the Chocolate gene has been
obtained, then the genes for chocolate are undoubtedly absent, and to
claim that cats are Lilac or Chocolatepointed is a gross deception. There
are cases where cats have been deliberately mal-fed in the hope of
changing the colour of the points and creating Lilac or Chocolate. No
genetical alterations are made thereby, and the practice is both
dishonest and a cruelty to the animals. (See also p. 76).
61
7. The campaign for the production of
Chocolate and Lilac- pointed Colourpoints
The pursuit of Chocolate (Colour photographs IX, XV left) and Lilac-
pointed (Colour photographs XII, XIV left) Colourpoints has occupied
the full resources of the Briarry and Mingchiu catteries until this goal
has been achieved. And a campaign it was. After the necessary initial
crosses were made the work progressed with odds of sixteen and thirty-
two to one against getting what we wanted. The same matings by the
same cats were repeated over and over again, and by different cats with
the same genetical makeup, because no cat produces litters of thirty-two
kittens, one of which might be the wanted one, or again it might not! A
seemingly unending stream of pets was born, each of which had to have
a good home found for it. Years went by, but in the end the object was
achieved. It took very much longer than the eight years spent in
breeding Colourpoints from the beginning in the Briarry cattery up to
their recognition by the cat fancy in 1955. Those who see, acquire or breed a Lilac or Chocolate-point, either
ready made, or from ready made stock emanating in the past from the
two catteries that have carried on this work, have no idea of the labour
and time involved in their background, or of the hopes, disappointments
and frustrations that have been endured. The first Chocolate-pointed
kitten in the Briarry cattery with good type and full coat met by an
untimely end; the first Chocolate-pointed Colourpoint in the Mingchiu
Cattery had good type and fine eye colour, but a semi-long coat, much
as in a Birman, due to the presence of too many Siamese genes for a
good Colourpoint, which had been introduced along with the genes for
the colour of the points. And it is no accident that a member of the
interested public at one of our largest shows, watching the judging of
the first Chocolate-pointed Colourpoint of champion standard, was
enchanted by his manners as well as his beauty. So much so, that the
home of such cats was sought out. Ch. Mingchiu Ptan, the first
Chocolate-pointed Colourpoint Cham-
62
CAMPAIGN FOR PRODUCTION OF CHOCOLATE AND LILAC
pion (Colour photograph IX), is in the habit of putting his 'arms' round
the neck of persons with a friendly smell or manner, judges or anyone
else, the better to rub the nose, and he expects his gestures to be
reciprocated in some way. Eyes are of far less importance for close-up
sensory perception in cats than nose and ears. Why do we want Chocolate and Lilac-pointed Colourpoints? Is it just
the stamp collecting mania for every possible variety of everything?
This was not the initial motive. These colours were bred because of
their expected beauty in the Longhair, and largely because we expected
the body colour to remain pale throughout life, and not darken
somewhat, as do most of the Seal and Blue-points. And the pale body
colour combined with the dark points, shown during the first eighteen
months or so of our old established Colourpoints, is the body colour
most sought after by potential owners and breeders, and then,
unfortunately, often but not always, found to be evanescent. This
forecast of the appearance of cats whose genetical composition was
being purposely made has proved to be quite accurate, and these new
colour varieties of Colourpoints do maintain a pale body colour
throughout life, at least in the several years that any one of them has so
far been in existence. A cat past its second winter is not likely to change
appreciably in colour. There is a very slight darkening on the back of
Chocolate-points in winter, but it pales again in summer and is not
sufficient to spoil the general effect. A Lilacpointed Colourpoint,
Mingchiu Sula, at four years of age, was just as pale on the body as in
her first season, and Mingchiu Sula Three at 21 years and Mingchiu
Sulafour at eighteen months are like Sula. The gene for Chocolate (a Brown of a distinctly different tone to that
of Seal) had to be introduced into the Longhairs from Shorthairs,
because this colour only existed in the Chocolate-pointed Siamese and
in Self-chocolate Shorthairs at the time when this work was started. The
production of the Chocolate-pointed Colourpoint from the former
follows exactly the same lines as described above for the inheritance of
two pairs of characters, but as more than two were usually involved, the
segregation of the genes concerned was more complex. The F I cats from a mating between a Chocolate-pointed Siamese and
a Seal-pointed Colourpoint resemble poor type Siamese with Seal-
points, i.e. too short noses and too small ears, etc. for Siamese.
63
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Mingchiu Trivia, a Seal-pointed Shorthair, was such a cat (Photograph
31). The mating together of two such carriers produces a great variety of
offspring, short-haired, long-haired, Blue-pointed, Sealpointed,
Chocolate-pointed and Lilac-pointed, if blue is carried also by both
parents. But in addition coats intermediate in length appeared, the
composite genes for coat length here segregating somewhat to give the
intermediate lengths. The chances against getting a Chocolate-pointed
Longhair from such a mating are great. But the carriers are of great
service. Briarry Tromo was a Seal-pointed Colourpoint of fair type, with a
good long coat, and carrying Chocolate. Trivia and Tromo mated
together gave a chance of one in thirty-two of producing what we
wanted, but Trivia did not want Tromo! He lived a little distance away
and there were males who were her friends and to her liking close at
hand. She frustrated us many times by her nonco-operation, but in the
end she was successfully mated by Tromo on several occasions,
producing several most useful litters. MINGCHIU TRIVIA x BRIARRY TROMO
SHORTHAIR SEAL-POINT FEMALE COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR, SEAL
(Photograph 31) POINTED MALE
(as in Colour Photograph 1)
CARRYING LONGHAIR, BLUE CARRYING CHOCOLATE AND
AND CHOCOLATE BLUE
aal-cScSb-d- aallcScSb-d- The eggs
will be of eight kinds: The sperms will be of four kinds:
alcSbd alcSbd
alcSb- alcSb- alcS-d
alcS-d
alcS-- at&-
a-cSbd
a-cSb- a-cS-d
a-cS-- eight different kinds of eggs each have an equal chance of being
fertilized by any one of the four different types of sperms, so producing
thirty-two different genotypes of cats in the progeny. Two of these will
be Chocolate-pointed Colourpoints aallcScSbb, one
64
 VI AT HOME AND ABROAD
Above: Ch. Mingchiu Mandarin of Sahadi and his 34 British awards, aged 1 year.
He is the first Colourpoint to become an international champion between Great
Britain and the USA, 1965.
VII Below: Ch. Mingchiu Ghunti, a Blue-pointed male with paler points than in
CAMPAIGN FOR PRODUCTION OF CHOCOLATE AND LILAC
carrying Blue (with one din addition) and the other pure carrying no
Blue, and there will be one Lilac-pointed Colourpoint aallcScSbbdd. But there is also the segregation of coat length, not tabulated here.
However, in spite of the heavy odds against success in a few years of
breeding, a Chocolate-pointed Colourpoint was obtained. She had good
type, fine eye colour but coat not as fine as would have been liked. She
carried Blue and was one of the ancestors of the Mingchiu Lilac-points. Matings, such as those just described, had to be made in parallel and
many times over in order to provide suitable pairs for further breeding
which would not be too closely related. A battalion of Short and
Longhaired queens, patterned and plain, in the Briarry cattery, were
mated by Tromo, but in spite of the smaller number of animals in the
Mingchiu cattery, it was there that Chocolate and Lilac-pointed
Colourpoints first grew up. There was no rivalry over this. Both catteries
were working together and it did not matter where the first cats of the
new varieties actually appeared. The other source of the Chocolate gene was from Self-coloured
Shorthair and, almost from the beginning, this introduced gene was
combined with that from Chocolate-point Siamese. The antecedents of Briarry Bruno, the first Self-Chocolate Longhair,
were:
SEAL-POINTED SIAMESE
MALE
(Ch. Briarry Macsuch)
gave
X SELF-BLUE LONGHAIR FEMALE
(Debutante of Dunesk)
BLACK SHORTHAIR MALE (Briarry Swashbuckler) carrying Longhair, Chocolate and Blue
SELF-CHOCOLATE SHORTHAIR FEMALE BLUE LONGHAIR MALE
(Laurentide Brown Prestige) (Ch. Foxborrow Frivolous)
gave
BLUE SHORTHAIR FEMALE (Gadeford Kelpie) carrying Longhair and Chocolate Swashbuckler mated to Kelpie produced Gadeford Bagheera, a
E
65
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Chestnut Brown (Chocolate) Shorthair male carrying Longhair. He was
the sire of Briarry Bruno the first Self-chocolate Longhair, a male of fair
type, too long a nose, too large ears and fine coat, but also carrying the
Siamese colour pattern from his great great grandfather. The gene for
the coat pattern had been transmitted invisibly (one gene only, or
heterozygous) through the intervening generations. Bruno, the Self-chocolate Longhair carrying the patterned coat, was
mated to Mingchiu Snuff, a Chocolate-pointed Colourpoint carrying
blue, and thereby were produced Self-chocolate and Selflilac Longhair
kittens. Other hazards then took over. Faulty vaccines destroyed all but
one of these kittens, Mingchiu Lilak (Self-lilac carrying the patterned
coat) alone surviving (Colour photograph XIII). Snuff, her mother, got
mixed as to which was tail and which was cord just after her birth and bit
the wrong thing. The injury ultimately caused the tail tip to shrivel and
drop off. Lilak now goes about with a stiff bottle-brush behind, and on
occasion she abruptly about turns and waves this stump at me, a sure
sign that she wants something. The final tragedy was the death of Bruno. He left some Longhair
Chocolate females in the Briarry cattery, but no male was produced until
Mingchiu Lilak (Self-lilac Longhair) was mated to the first Chocolate-
pointed Colourpoint male, Mingchiu Romeo, to produce a fine litter of
male and female Self-chocolate Longhairs and three Chocolate-pointed
Colourpoints, the winning litter of 'any Colour Longhair' at the
Kensington Kitten Show in London, July 1967. The type of all these
kittens was fairly good, and the male Self-chocolate Longhair, Mingchiu
Kohcoh, is an enormous improvement upon his ancestor Briarry Bruno.
Good also are the females Mingchiu Danladi, Mingchiu Koffee and
Mingchiu Koca from other lines of breeding, the latter out of Mingchiu
Lilak (Self-lilac L.H.) by Ch. Mingchiu Ptan (Chocolate-point (Colour
photograph IX)), Koca has as good a short, wide, well demarcated nose
as any good Longhair and fine orange-coloured eyes (Colour
photograph XV right) but the coat needs to be longer. These females
with Briarry Madre Decacaid are being mated by Kohcoh and form the
great grandparents of Self-chocolate Longhair kittens of the future who win claim recognition and a breed number because they win show three
generations of Chocolate to Chocolate matings on their pedigrees.
66
CAMPAIGN FOR PRODUCTION OF CHOCOLATE AND LILAC
Having obtained both Chocolate and Lilac-pointed Colourpoints and
the two new Self-coloured varieties of cat , breeding goes on now to
improve the type and eliminate still further the unwanted characteristics
imported from the Shorthairs. To this end Mingchiu Lilak (Self-lilac
carrying Colourpoint pattern (Colour photograph XIII)) was mated to a
very fine type Seal-pointed colourpoint carrying blue, Ch. Mingchiu
Polo (Photograph 1). From the Blue and Seal-pointed carriers so
produced, a very fine male Blue-point carrying Chocolate, Ch. Mingchiu
Chirk (Colour photograph 111), was selected for further breeding. He
was second to Ch. Chou-Lu at the National Cat Club Show in London
1967, an indication as to his excellence in type and has since then been
placed above him. Chirk is now mating a harem of young Lilac and
Chocolate-pointed Colourpoints and champion carriers of Chocolate
(e.g. Ch. Mingchiu Merle). The 1968 season has seen the birth of
Chocolate and of Lilac-pointed Colourpoints of the same excellence in
type as the Seal and Blue-pointed Colourpoints already in existence.
This is a fitting tribute to the initial work of the Briarry cattery and to the
sound sense and determination of the late Mr B. A. Stirling-Webb in
starting this huge project. The mating of existing Chocolate-points to
Chocolate-points, would speed the production in numbers of the new
variety, but it is better to stem the pace and breed for good type first.
Champions of both Chocolate and Lilac-pointed Colourpoints now exist
(Colour photographs VIII, XII), and the first breeding pair of Lilac-points
passed to other hands in 1968. From the welter of genes and of the characters which they evoke, four
new varieties of cat have been produced: Chocolate-pointed Longhair,
Lilac-pointed Longhair, Self-coloured Chocolate Longhair and Lilac
Longhair. Each is pure for the characters by which it is named, and each
when mated to the same will produce nothing but the same for an
unlimited number of generations. The labour, time and resources
expended in making these varieties has been great, but the favours of
chance are not always so hard to come by. In Devon a black-and-white pet of unknown ancestry and her
daughter found their own mate on more than one occasion. Whether he
was the same each time is not known. All we know is that he, or they,
must have carried the genes for Longhair, Chocolate and the Siamese
colour pattern, but his external appearance might have been
67
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
almost anything. His or their kittens included a Birman, a Colourpoint, a
white-footed Siamese, Blacks, and a Self-chocolate Longhair! A more
unlikely achievement would be hard to conceive. Some of these cats
were shown at the South Western Counties Show in 1966. They were
not of outstandingly good type, but one would hardly expect to find a
potential champion of any of our domestic varieties turning up by the
chance matings of a 'pet' instead of by selected matings. The progeny of the black-and-white cat are easily accounted for on
the assumption that a strong-minded Chocolate-pointed Siamese had
been busy on the loose in the neighbourhood, creating offspring
carrying Chocolate. The genes for the other characteristics are freely
present in any population of domestic cats. But it was a remarkable
piece of 'chance' for someone to get all these varieties when possessing
just one pet cat. The Briarry and Mingchiu catteries could well have
done with a little more of this sort of chance. Another piece of chance is worthy of record. It has been shown
above how many years and several generations and lines of breeding
were needed to put the recessive Chocolate Brown gene into the
Longhairs and obtain also good type. And secondly it has been
stressed that most of the varieties of domestic cats have arisen in
association with a reshuffle of existing genes and not with mutations
(see Appendix). But a real mutation of the dominant Black to the
recessive Brown gene has been pinpointed. It is probable that this
mutation occurred in one spermatogonium, a cell forming sperms, of Ch.
Mingchiu Polo, a Seal-point certainly carrying no chocolate. He has
been tested several times by mating to Self-lilac and Lilac-points (cats
carrying Chocolate) and has never produced a Chocolate or a Lilac of
any kind. But two of Polo's Seal-pointed sons have sired both Chocolate
and Lilac-points and Selfs, when mated to a visual Chocolate and a
Chocolate carrier. This would be impossible if the two sons did not carry
Chocolate. A similar origin of a brown mutation has been recorded in the
mouse (Searle, A. G., personal communication) and the above is the
probable explanation of the mutation in Polo. As far as is recorded, there
is no precise information as to the origin of the Chocolate Brown in
Siamese or any other Shorthair. Once it is there, the Brown is inherited
on the lines described above.
68
8. Red, Tortie and Cream-pointed Colourpoints
and sex-linked inheritance
It is possible to breed Colourpoints as well as Siamese with colour to the
points other than Seal, Blue, Chocolate and Lilac. It has been shown in
Chapters 3, 6 and 7 how only two modifying pairs of genetical factors
alter the basic Seal-pointed cats to any of the three other colours,
according to the representation of these genes. Two series of varieties
ensue, (1) the Seal and Blue and, (2) the Seal, Chocolate and Lilac-
pointed cats. Red and Tortie-pointed cats do not belong to either of
these series. They can be made with greater ease than the Chocolate and
Lilac-points because no short-haired cats are needed for their
production, and so there need be no loss of type in the making of these
colour varieties. Both the Red and the Tortie-point are in existence in
America in the Longhairs, and a start is being made for their breeding in
Britain. The Red-points differ from good Seal, Blue, Chocolate and Lilac-
points in that tabby markings are usually apparent to some extent in the
points. These stripes are very difficult to eliminate. The Tortie points
show the same colours in the points made up by red, black and cream
hairs as in cats bearing the full tortoiseshell colouring all over, and 'a
blaze of red or cream running down between the eyes is desirable.' Both Tortie and Red-pointed Colourpoints are dependent upon a
gene which produces yellow by modifying the development of
melanism, the black pigment in the hair. The shades of yellow range
from pastel yellow to rich red, the latter being well seen in the show type
Red Selfs and Red Tabbies. The gene producing yellow is inherited
slightly differently from those already considered, because it is borne
by one of the sex chromosomes. The cat possesses 19 pairs of
chromosomes, one of these being the sex pair of chromosomes, usually
designated X and Y, because they are not exactly alike, as are the
members of the other 18 pairs of chromosomes. Genes are borne by the
X chromosome but not by the Y chromosome. The female cat has two X
chromosomes, designated XX, while the male cat has XY
69
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
chromosomes. At the mating of a male and a female:
The fertilized eggs will be of two kinds, XX giving female kittens and
YX giving male kittens, in equal numbers. A male with a particular gene in his X chromosome can transmit it to
his daughters but not to his sons, while a female with a particular gene
in her X chromosomes can transmit it equally to both sons and
daughters. Such a gene is described as sex-linked, and the gene 0
standing for yellow (orange-red) is an example. A female Red Tabby or
Red Self (their basic genetical make up is similar) has the gene for yellow
in both X chromosomes, designated here XºXº. The male Red Tabby or
Red Self carries but one yellow gene, and his sex chromosomes can be
represented XºY, where the Y chromosome carries no yellow gene. The
yellow gene is unlike those so far considered in that it is incompletely
dominant and when present on only one X chromosome of the female,
XX, the cat is Tortoiseshell in appearance. The coat is a mixture of
yellow and non-yellow hairs, the latter being Tabby or Black. The hair
types may be intermingled (brindled) or they may be segregated into
areas. There is no Tortoiseshell male because he has only one X
chromosome and so the heterozygous state of a Tortoiseshell female
never obtains. The Brown Tabby shows no incomplete dominance and
the heterozygous state is Tabby not Tortoiseshell in appearance. A
mating between Colourpoint and a Brown Tabby produces Tabby and
Black kittens in contrast to the results given below from mating a Red
Tabby with a Colourpoint. Two or three generations are needed for the breeding of Colourpoints
with Red and Tortie points, but more than one mating of the same kind
may be required for obtaining these colours. The start can be made with
either a Red Longhair male and a Seal-pointed
70
RED, TORTIE AND CREAM-POINTED COLOURPOINTS
Colourpoint female, or the Colourpoint may be the male. The kittens will
not be the same in the two crosses, see below. Since both varieties are
longhaired, the gene symbols 11 used above can be omitted because
they are present in the homozygous state in all cats and kittens noted
below. The symbols cScS as before represent the genes giving the
visible Colourpoint coat pattern; when these genes are heterozygous, cS-
, they give a cat carrying the colour pattern invisibly. RED LONGHAIR MALE X SEAL-POINTED COLOURPOINT
FEMALE
X0y--- XX cScS
The sperms will be of two kinds: The eggs will all be:
The resulting fertilized eggs and F 1 kittens will be:
female Tortoiseshells male Blacks
carrying Colourpoint carrying Colourpoint
If the cross is made the other way round, using a Red female,, (XºXº -)
and a Colourpoint male (XY &&), Tortoiseshell female carriers and Red
male carriers will be produced. Now mate one of the Tortoiseshell carriers from either F1 to a male
Colourpoint: SEAL-POINTED COLOURPOINT X TORTOISESHELL FEMALE
MALE CARRYING COLOURPOINT
XYcScS XºXcS- The
sperms will be The eggs will be
of two kinds: of four kinds:
'If the Red SeIfs were genetically agouti, as are the Tabbies of all colours, Tabbies
and Tabby-tortoiseshells would be produced. It is necessary to use Red Selfs that are
not carrying agouti. 
71
two types Of sperm and one type of egg will be produced:
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Each type of egg has an equal chance of being fertilized by either type
of sperm, so that four types of females and four types of males will be
produced in the F2 generation:
FEMALES
XXº cScS XXºcS- XXcScS XXcS-
Tortie-pointed Tortoiseshell Seal-pointed Black
Colourpoint carrying Colourpoint carrying
female Colourpoint Colourpoint
MALES
XºYcScS XºYcS- XYcScS
Red-pointed Red carrying Seal-pointed
Colourpoint Colourpoint Colourpoint
male
XY&L Black
carrying
Colourpoint
Next, mate together the Red-pointed male Colourpoint produced
above in the F2 generation, with a Tortie pointed female Colourpoint
from the F2, preferably from a parallel set of matings:
RED-POINTED MALE X TORTIE-POINTED FEMALE
COLOURPOINT COLOURPOINT
XºycScS XXº cScS
The sperms will be The eggs will be
of two kinds: of two kinds:
Each egg has an equal chance of being fertilized by either type of sperm,
so producing fertilized eggs and F 3 kittens:
XXºcScS Tortie-
pointed female
Colourpoint
XºXº
cScS
Red-pointed
female
Colourpoint
XYcScS Seal-
pointed male
Colourpoint
XºYcScS
Red-pointed
male
Colourpoint
Thus from one initial outcross of a Colourpoint to a Red Longhair
72
NINE YEARS OF PROGRESS 13
Ch. Mingchiu Chou-Lu at 8 months, twice best Longhair kitten in show (Harrogate
and Southport) later best Colourpoint in Show at the National, 1967. He was sired
by Ch. Mingchiu Shan out of Briarry Jehane. His coat reached 5 1/2 inches length.
Compare with Photograph 12 opposite p. 41.
 14
CONTRIBUTORS TO
COLOURPOINT PROGRESS
Left: Blue Longhair, Ch.
Diana of Pensford. From such
cats bred to Colourpoints invaluable Self-coloured carriers
of the Colourpoint pattern
are produced: these breed both
Self-coloured and Colourpoint kittens.
Right, above: Mingchiu Melania, a Shorthair Black,
carrying the genes for Colourpoint pattern, Blue and
Chocolate. Below: Two Mingchiu Black Longhair kittens
of good type, carrying the
Colourpoint pattern, aged 7
weeks,   17
18
IN PURSUIT OF TYPE Above and below: A budding champion at 11 months, Mingchiu
Chou-Lu, showing round wide head and short nose (cf. Photographs 32-33), small,
well-set ears and wide top of head, compact body low on the ground, coat 5 1/2 inches and very pale, contrasting with the Seal-points, short, well-furnished brush.
RED, TORTIE AND CREAM-POINTED COLOURPOINTS
two subsequent generations can produce Red-point males and females
and Tortie-point females in the proportions given. However, if two initial
outcrosses are made with two Colourpoints, so that a Tortoiseshell
carrier and a Red male carrier of Colourpoint are available which are
unrelated to one another, then cats with Tortie, and with Red points in
both sexes, can all be made in the F2 generation, but at a less
advantageous expectation in numbers. A mating between a
Tortoiseshell carrier, XºXcS-, and a Red male carrier, XºYcS-, from the F 1
litters gives four types of egg and four types of sperm, and the fertilized
eggs and resulting kittens will be of 16 types, like the table on p. 27. On
average one in 16 will be a Redpointed female Colourpoint, XºXºcScS,
another will be a Redpointed male Colourpoint, XºYcScS, and a third will
be a Tortiepointed female Colourpoint, XºXcScS, The expectation of one
of these three types of cat turning up is much less than the one in eight
expectation in the F 2 or the one in four in the F 3 generation from the
breeding programme given above in full. A Red-pointed Colourpoint mated to the same should produce
nothing but Red points. A Red-pointed female Colourpoint mated to a
Seal-point male will produce Tortie-pointed daughters and Sealpointed
sons. Tortie-pointed males as well as male Tortoiseshell carriers are
unexpected, but they may turn up very rarely, as in the normal
Tortoiseshells. Such males as have occurred are usually, but not
always, sterile. The genetical explanation of these rare occurrences is
open to various alternatives which will not be considered here. A Cream Longhair is genetically a Red with the addition of
homozygous genes for blue dilution dd. Creams can replace Reds in the
above breeding programmes, and the F 1 cats will carry, but not visibly
show, the dilution factor in its heterozygous state d~. But if a Cream and
a Blue-pointed Colourpoint are used, then Blue-cream carriers of
Colourpoint will be formed in the F 1, Blue-cream being the dilute form of
Tortoiseshell with homozygous genes dd. The continued use of Blue-
pointed Colourpoints will lead to the formation of Cream-pointed
Colourpoints. Since the availability of Cream Longhairs of good type is
greater than that of Reds, the use of good Creams with Seal-pointed
Colourpoints should produce satisfactory Red and Tortie-pointed
Longhairs. It is further possible
73
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
that the red colour of the points might be intensified by the use of
Chocolate-pointed Colourpoints instead of Seal.
Tabby-pointed Colourpoints could be produced by the incorporation
of the genes for blotched, lined or mackerel Tabby into the genetical
make up of Colourpoints.
74
9. The temperament or character of
Colourpoints
No account of the heritable characteristics of Colourpoints would be
complete without reference to their temperament, on which passing
comment has been made in the previous pages. The personality of a cat
depends in part upon the genetical make up of the variety. But an
enormous amount of individual variation is dependent upon the way the
animal is brought up and the manner in which it lives, superimposed of
course on the normal character differences between one individual and
another, such as are found in any population, or single family, of the
animals with considerable intelligence, cat or man. The general behaviour patterns of Colourpoints are intermediate
between those of Siamese and of Self-coloured Persians or Longhairs.
There has been plenty of selection of segregating characters affecting
the visible structure or colour of cats, but nothing has been purposely
done in selection for personality. Colourpoints are on the whole much
more enterprising than the average self-coloured cat, and they are a rest
cure to an owner who has endured the domineering ways and
boisterous and violent affections of the Siamese. Colourpoints are extremely affectionate, but not as demonstrative or
commanding as Siamese. All the same they need and ask much from
their owners and do not show the aloof ways of many an 'alley cat' or
tabby. However, as their manners are typically pleasant and as they
seem to enjoy so much of their owner's company and general life, they
have claim to be the most perfect of pets. But if you want affection from
a cat you must give it in return. All cats are perfectly capable of making their own living in open
country, and they come to man only if they want to do so. A penkept
Colourpoint that had been forced to change its home and was shut up
again for safety managed to escape twice. The first time he lived wild in
the woods for two months before being success
75
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
fully trapped. The second time he escaped for good. By contrast, a
Colourpoint carrier returned to the home of her birth after an absence of
six years, which started when she was a small kitten. She too had been
penned, escaped, and caught again with difficulty. But she recognized
her old home, and with evident pleasure, as deduced from the non-stop
purring. She was given complete freedom of house and garden and she
never strayed, but took her place among the other happy Mingchiu cats,
although she would have preferred to have been the only cat. Very
slowly, in her middle age, did she learn that it was nice to sit on the lap
and have the head stroked. She desperately wanted to live in a house,
dashing into the garden at will-she had never been in the garden in her
kittenhood. Only when she was brought near an outdoor pen did she
voice her disapproval in no uncertain manner. In other words, whether your Colourpoint loves you or not depends
on you. He is prepared to do so, and his whole behaviour will be
affected by how you reciprocate, no matter what genes he carries. You
can change the colour of his Points slightly, for example by changing
homes and precipitating a moult, preceding which some dark hairs
become pale; you can alter the body colour by indoor climates and lack
of light; and you can make or ruin your cat's behaviour patterns by the
way you keep him. Two sleek and hefty well-fed working cats, 'civil servants' with their
own maintenance allowance, were peacefully watching the 'telly' in a
basement common room one cold and windy evening. An entering
superior officer remarked, 'What are you doing here you boys, better go
out and do your job on the wharves and in the sheds.' But 'Oh, sir,
please let them finish the programme,' pleaded a friend! Actually the
subsistence allowance was for one cat, but he brought in a fourfooted
pal, to share his dinner and his work, who was allowed to remain, the
bipedal civil servants seeing to it that neither of them lacked for
anything. One should not be too anthropomorphic in the interpretation of the
behaviour of an animal, but it is equally wrong to consider that an
intelligent animal such as a cat has no mentality at all and can thrive in
confinement like a greenhouse plant. A cat deprived of all opportunity
of choosing its own activities, of doing what it likes, of having 'fun' and
interest of its own finding, becomes a
76
TEMPERAMENT OR CHARACTER OF COLOURPOINTS
neurotic pathetic creature, however hygienic the cage or suitable the
food. We all know how a cat will eat what it steals with great gusto,
when that same article placed upon its dinner plate would be rejected. It
is the same with children and the unripe apples stolen from an orchard.
A cat enjoys confinement in a hygienic cage or small pen just as much
as a human enjoys a prison cell where there is nothing to do and no
access to anything of interest is permitted. Abroad it is reported that great interest has at times been attracted by
Mingchiu cats at shows, because of their charming manners towards
humans, and the way in which they greet their owners. The owners of
the local cats, all kept in cages, are astonished, never having believed
that cats could behave like that. An utterly frustrated cat becomes
pathetically uninterested in life, humans and all, and may well become
fierce and ready to lash out, not really at any one person, but against its
whole manner of miserable enforced life. It is not enough to keep a cat for its looks, perhaps for its feel, and
often for its show-bench potential - unfortunately enormous numbers of
cats languish in that manner. And when the cage is unhygienic, dark
and uninteresting, their lot is pathetic indeed. In England it is not
customary to keep cats in cages, and many persons are unaware of the
practice, but even here the ugly head of the cage is being reared and
should be firmly suppressed. If you cannot do so without a cage, do not
keep a cat at all. So what does a Colourpoint want, if he is to become a perfect pet?
First and foremost he must not be caged, or caused to live in any other
type of 'soul-destroying' existence with no scope for his faculties. He
can be penned in large and suitable quarters for part of each 24 hours.
though he prefers to come and go as he pleases. For safety's sake, he
must always be kept in at night. A happy cat does not want to run away,
but he must have some freedom at regular intervals. Cats are not gregarious mammals because of their basically
carnivorous diet for which they do not hunt in packs. But they do not
like solitary confinement any more than a human does. Two males,
friends from kittenhood, will live together peaceably enough for a
couple of years, but they usually will fight when fully mature.
77
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
The significance of such fighting has been well studied by Dr
Leyhausenll together with the meaning of many cat noises. Some
barriers must be erected if more than one full male is kept. Units
consisting of a family party, with more than one wife to each male, live
happily together, a much better arrangement than having solitary males
for ever pacing their misery alone in a pen. A male with one or two
wives, and freedom for part of their day, will be reasonably content in a
well-lit house of about 7 x 5 ft. with plenty of windows, shelves, etc. set
in an interesting enclosure of 20 x 14 ft or more. Occasionally the
Mingchiu females are allowed to kitten in their own houses along with
the other inhabitants. But more usually they come into the human house
well beforehand, where the worst restriction that can happen is a closed
door at times. Each cat must be made to feel that he is a real pet, and he
must feel this even if one of a number in a cattery. No owner can spread
personal attentions over too large a number of cats; some twenty adults
is an upper limit if other activities are also pursued. How are the Mingchiu cats treated so that they have the widely
acclaimed delightful temperament? Each one is always addressed by
name several times a day and each one is given opportunity to indulge
in its own particular fad, whatever that may be. Roxana is one of my
oldest Colourpoints; she has never been penned. She was spayed at the
age of nine years, having been a wonderful breeder. She is my quiet
shadow wherever I go. Her face is at the window waiting for my return.
She is never demonstrative, but she gives and receives all the time, be it
sitting on part of my chair as 1 work, asking for her front paw to be held,
or flopped across my shoulders. She is not a lap cat. She takes a wide
stroll of the gardens daily and sleeps on a chair by my bed at night. She
enjoys many special privileges which she defends unobtrusively. Her
methods are simple towards another trying to take her place. She may
just look the other way and move off, but if the usurper tries too often,
her eyes flash. She raises her wide and woolly paw, all fingers spread,
but not to strike and start a rough house. No, she firmly pushes in the
face of the cat that wants to sit on her established spot, and the method
works.
78
'Leyhausen, P., 1965, 'The Communal Organization of Solitary Mammals', Symp.
Zool. Soc., Lond. No. 14, pp. 249-263.
TEMPERAMENT OR CHARACTER OF COLOURPOINTS
What each cat asks for is usually different, although the general
behaviour may be similar. Polo must have his back scratched just so-at
one time he had a slightly irritating skin. Zorab must lie on his back for
his tummy to be rubbed, four paws in the air; several consider the
proper place for a Colourpoint is round the neck. Magog, who detests
strangers, and runs and hides when they come, does not like being
handled, but she will use her paw vigorously to intercept me if I appear
to be passing her by without our customary little private talk, rub of
noses and stroke of the head. Along she comes for attention whenever I
am near. The boy Choc was always most extravagant in his hugs round
the neck in order to lick the face. That formality being over his next
attention was the eating of catmint and rolling in it. After that a tour of
inspection and sniffing in the garden-the aviaries, he thought, were
there for his special entertainment-and finally he had to start a row with
some other boy through the netting of some enclosure and try to spray,
to register ownership of females belonging to another male. He now
lives in another home where he is as. free and as happy as he was in the
Mingchiu cattery. The ease with which an adult Colourpoint can change homes
depends, not on the detail of his individual genetical make up, but on
the manner in which he has lived and the way in which he has been
handled. But the inherent difference in temperament between the
Siamese and the Colourpoint makes such a change of home easy for the
latter if the cat has been suitably treated, in contrast to a pen-kept
Colourpoint who ran away for good, both of his penned existences
being loveless. Even the most understanding of second owners may be
unable to make any headway with an adult Colourpoint that has been
unsuitably brought up and whose character is warped for life. By
contrast, take Ch. Mingchiu Kamet who left the Mingchiu cattery at the
age of 2-1 years, strode into
his new home, jumped upon laps in a friendly manner, clearly said
'where is my missus', and, the 'liars' that cats are, also said that he had
always been in the habit of sitting right in the middle of the dining room
table at meal times, although actually he had lived in his own house and
enclosure for most of his day and had never been allowed such liberties. Kittens cannot be treated as individuals to quite the same extent
79
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
when small because of their numbers but they can never be mass
produced. Mingchiu kittens are addressed collectively, but fed
separately (Photograph 16); litters are not caged but may be partly
restricted to certain rooms. A little of the right kind of attention goes a
long way. Simple caging or shutting of doors is usually needed for a few
minutes only at meal times, in order to keep the age groups separated,
and they all have scope for their own initiatives. Care must be taken in making an intimate relationship with a cat lest it
develop into something so formidable for the cat that it cannot be
broken. Some might say formidable for the human too. But let us take
just one example. A Siamese cat considered herself to be THE cat of the
house; she slept on the bed and sat in the lap the moment there was a
lap to sit on. The adored human was her slave. Colourpoints came along,
and in increasing numbers, and she was bitterly jealous. She rushed
away in a huff when they came near. At the age of eight years she
shifted her official home to a house nearby where she was well cared for
and realized her dream of being the only cat on the premises, and
another became her 'very own human'. But she returned frequently to the
original garden, looked at the empty lap at tea time that was hers to take,
swore and ran away. Daily she came to the back door and commanded a
plate of rabbit, served exactly to her liking, to be eaten out of doors in all
weathers. But there were no gentle ways, no gestures of goodwill or
friendship. If touched she swore, it was difficult to believe she was still
the same cat. Sometimes she came right into the house but she always
rushed out again in a rage. She could never in many years resolve the
conflict between losing what she once had and the present situation,
although she seemed happy enough in her second home, and curiously
pleased to see me there if I called. In all she was a pathetic little thing,
wanting what she would not take and what was offered to her, a cat of
very different basic temperament to the Colourpoint.  VIII THE NEWER COLOURS
Right: Mingchiu Sulafour, a
female aged 9 months. She is
the first Lilac-pointed
Colourpoint to reach
championship status with two
Challenge Certificates in 1969.
The nose is wide and well
demarcated, the body cobby
and low on the ground, the tail
short and full, and the coat
long and silky.
IX Below: Ch. Mingchiu Ptan,
a male Chocolate-pointed
Colourpoint aged 3 years who
in 1968 became the first
Chocolate-pointed champion.
He carries Blue and sires Seal,
Blue, Chocolate and Lilac-
pointed kittens, depending
upon his mate.   10. Man-made and natural varieties
It has been stated that a major difference between Birman cats and
Colourpoints is that the former are a naturally occurring variety while
the latter are man-made. Even the American official classification of
domestic varieties of cats has adopted this idea and put it in print. The
complete baselessness of this concept, for which not a shred of
scientific evidence exists, should now be pointed out. Let the facts be stated. The Birman cat is said to have turned up in
Burma, but with no recorded ancestry, and was imported into France,
bred for a number of years and more recently exported to many other
countries. The Birman cat in appearance is much like an early
Colourpoint in type (see para. 1, p. 31 above), but possesses white feet.
The Birman shows the Siamese colour pattern, the coat is not as long as
in a typical Longhair, the nose is straight, the ears largish and pricked,
and the body lacks the cobby build of a good Longhair. A Birman also
turned up from accidental unknown matings in Devon in 1965 and more
recently elsewhere in England. The genes giving the white footed character are widespread in
domestic cats but, because the standards adopted for show type
varieties has dictated it, the white foot has been eliminated from all our
pedigree stocks of such cats. It can be seen often enough in alley cats,
and indeed is a frequent colour pattern of many species of domestic
animals, such as dogs and horses. The Birman cat has been synthesized just as surely as has the
Colourpoint. In Germany the progeny of a white-footed Siamese and a
Longhair ultimately produced Birmans. The breeding was recorded' and
some of the German Birmans were sent to France for further breeding.
Mr B. A. Stirling-Webb and I at one time intended to make a Birman from
a white-footed black queen in
'R. Wolff, 'Vergessene Leistungen deutscher Züchter: Birma, Khmer und German-
Rex', Die Edelkatze., Nürnberg, 1965, 2, 1-3.
F
81
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
our possession and a wide choice of suitable mates. But his untimely
illness and death put a stop to the enterprise, because the Mingchiu
cattery was not willing to take in this queen and find the necessary
breeding space just to demonstrate that a Birman could be
manufactured. However, the demonstration took place under its own
steam in Devon. A black-and-white pet of unknown ancestry, purchased
in a pet shop, sought her unknown mate in the neighbourhood and
produced a Birman among other types of kitten (see above p. 67). The
essentials needed for Birman making is the coining together of the
genes for Siamese pattern, Longhair and Bicolour, the latter expressing
itself as white feet. Not all the white feet at first will have the required
gauntlet shape to the white area on the hind legs: that is a refinement.
This Devon Birman cat sought her own mate and produced a white-
footed Siamese, a Colourpoint and black kittens by the segregation of
the type described above. And all this occurred before any Birmans
bred in England were distributed. The chance of a Birman turning up naturally is present wherever
Siamese and Bicoloured cats, carrying Longhair, coexist. Birmans may
be made more quickly by planned matings, unless the population of
freely mating cats is exactly right, as it appeared to be in this part of
Devon. A male Siamese cat, not under proper control, and mating with
the cats of the neighbourhood, as is the custom of these animals, will
inevitably in time lead to the chance appearance of both Colourpoint
and Birman cats. If he is a Chocolate-point, other progeny of interest
also appear. Colourpoints as well as Birmans have turned up without the
intervention of man, as noted above, and their sudden appearance
in places as far apart as Scotland, Devon, Cornwall and Kenya is
quite understandable. Colourpoints. will continue to turn up acci
dentally wherever Siamese and Longhair cats coexist, and, as there
are probably more plain Longhairs or cats carrying Longhair only
than Bicoloured Longhair cats or cats carrying Bicolour and Long
hair, the frequency of Colourpoints turning up will be greater than
that of Birmans.
There is not the slightest difference scientifically between the mating
of a Siamese and a Longhair Blue, for example, which takes place under
the watchful eye of a stud owner and a similar
82
MAN-MADE AND NATURAL VARIETIES
mating taking place in the wild when these varieties coexist. And it has
been exactly those matings which have been used on at least two
occasions for the purpose of ultimately obtaining Colourpoints. it is
probable that the cats involved in chance matings will be of not such
'show type' as those whose matings take place under supervision; but
the difference, as shown above, between the showtype cats and the
others is one of refinement, of the reassortment of genes producing the
minor characters which make the show cat what he is. If further argument is sought upon this subject it should be borne in
mind that the first Colourpoint, forming the basis of the pedigrees of a
large part of our Colourpoint population today, was one which had no
known ancestry and turned up in the wild. Colourpoints and Birmans
can both be man-made and they can both be naturally occurring.
Whether the American Himalayan cats are exclusively man-made I do
not know, but it may be that they are in a nation that cages its Siamese
and pedigree cats so carefully. But Himalayan, Colourpoint and Birman
will turn up naturally wherever they get the chance. The enormous amount of scientific work that has been accomplished
on the genetics of animals and of the breeding of domestic compared
with wild varieties shows that the same basis is common to all. What
that basis is in Colourpoints and some other cats has been indicated
above; whether they be free or not makes no difference. There is one major difference between Birmans and Colourpoints. The
standard of points adopted for Birmans seeks to maintain the features
resembling those of initial crosses between Siamese and Longhair and
their descendants, leaving aside the white feet for the moment. The
mating of Birman to Birman is like the mating of early Colourpoint to
early Colourpoint, and produces no major change. But the standard of
points adopted for Colourpoints asks for a cat as like a typical Longhair
in type as possible, and thus as time goes on, the Colourpoint becomes
less and less like a Birman as its type is improved to approximate more
closely to the finest Longhair. This then, and the white feet, are the
major differences between Birmans and Colourpoints, not their manner
of origin.
83
11. Housing and habits
The ideal life for a Colourpoint is complete freedom of the owner's house
and access by a 'pussflap' or pop-hole to a garden (Photographs 37, 38),
or large enclosure, containing plenty of interest to a cat, not to a
concrete yard. The owner then may be rewarded with an ideal pet.
Colourpoints differ from 'the cat that walked by himself' of Kipling. They
are interested in all that goes on in the owner's house and become
almost dog-like in their devotion to a particular human. If more than one
Colourpoint is kept there may be some jealousy, but they settle down
amicably. They like to choose the places where they sit and sleep; they
do not like being forced into a routine which is not of their own making,
and routines they do make. Each individual develops his or her own peculiarities, either about the
house or garden, or in relation to the owner. There are many derivatives
of the rolling behaviour which is normally used by females in display
towards a male prior to mating. Ch. Briarry Candytuft is a tremendous
roller. She does it when asked, and she expects to be asked several times
a day and the rolling must be watched attentively. In the garden she
likes to roll to order in particular places, all upon paving. For one week,
during my absence, no one asked her to roll. On my return she followed
me about wailing, food was spurned, and then I remembered. 'Candy,
roll,' I said, and over she went, but over and over again, non-stop right
across the kitchen, and she then was evidently satisfied. Males also roll. Ch. Mingchiu Choc indulged in a daily rolling in one
patch of cat mint (Nepeta) as soon as he was let out of his own
quarters, his fur becoming wet in places with the juices from the bruised
plant. After that he went some distance to another cat-mint plant, one in
about thirty and always to the same one, here to try to bite the plant to
bits at the roots. Ch. Mingchiu Shan, when in his pen, indulges in a
curious antic whereby he gets
84
HOUSING AND HABITS
the top of his head as well as all feet on a bench or shelf close to the
wire, and he looks up or down at his human friends obliquely. He is
clearly disappointed if this gesture is not followed by a reciprocal
greeting, by release from his pen or a cuddle. Another male, in his youth
and for some years after, liked to get on a roughly horizontal branch of a
tree and put his shoulders down on the branch, twisting his body and
waving both his front feet in the air as his human friends passed by
underneath. Sometimes he nearly fell off in the doing. In middle age he
did the same sort of thing on every step of the staircase on the way to
bed, together with some rather rough play, also repeated on every step.
At the age of approaching eighteen years the old cat still indulged in a
slow, very attenuated, 'stairs play' each night. All these activities have
their origin in the normal display pattern of the cats' behaviour. Other performances in relation to the owner vary greatly. One large
full-grown male digests his dinner flat on his back with his feet in the air
by his master's chair, his flank being supported by the chair leg so that
he does not roll over. Saying 'good morning' may be a very extravagant
affair, second only to a greeting given at other times in the day following
the owner's return from absence. Ch. Mingchiu Souk simply must tidy a
beard each morning, paws round master's neck, when she arrives in the
bedroom at getting up time. She will leave her kittens in order to go and
give this uninvited greeting. And she quietly waits her moment, not
hurling herself at the object of her affections, as would a Siamese. Ch.
Mingchiu Monique is less patient, and will not be kept waiting for her
morning cuddle, inflicting a sharp nip on the leg if the delay is too long.
Every cat, if there be more than one, must have individual attention, and
of the kind that each appreciates most or has come to expect in their
domesticated existence. The substitute for prey animals such as the rat, mouse or bird, is the
basis of much playing with balls of paper, etc. of various sizes, and
should form a recognized part of the cat's needs. Even the 'conversation'
of the cat with a large or a small bundle of paper in the mouth denotes
'mouse' or 'rat' to those who have analyzed their noises. A recognized scratching post, accepted by both cat and owner,
85
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
is a need in the house. A table leg with a piece of old carpet wrapped
round it serves the purpose most adequately, particularly when the floor
is carpeted. A scratch post on a shiny floor is not so favoured because
the back feet slip. The old carpet round the leg gets tom to shreds and
needs frequent renewal, but the cats soon learn that they are allowed to
scratch there. This is a must, even when there is access to a garden, and
the cat's claws are thereby kept in order. There is no need to clip the
claws of a well-kept cat except in extreme old age. To avoid all friction on
the subject of clawed upholstery, soft furnishings covered by the
material called 'Vynair' made by I.C.l., or other such fabric, provides the
complete answer. No claws will penetrate the material and so the cats
derive no pleasure or usefulness from trying to claw it, the cover. ings
remain intact indefinitely, and the 'scratch pole' is triumphant. A tray of peat moss, or any of the other absorbent cat litters on the
market, is usually useful, and essential if there are kittens. For adult cats
the tray must not be too small, at least 16-18 inches long. If the tray has
no 'legs', four pieces of lino, or other such substance, about the size of a
penny, can be stuck under the corners, so that the main part of the tray
is advantageously kept off the floor. The cats should be provided with their own baskets, boxes, blankets,
etc. for sleeping, and the surroundings must be draught free. The latter
is most important for kittens, even with their long hair. They catch cold
very easily. A simple low screen around a sleeping place is often very
useful in cold weather. Adult Colourpoints can exist without artificial
heat in winter in England, but do better with a little heat as described
below. If kept indoors under conditions of much winter heat and
dryness of atmosphere, no fine coat may develop. A Colourpoint appreciates access to a garden which is full of
interesting smells, with grass, flower beds, paths and trees to climb. And
they enjoy running the whole length of a garden, so obtaining exercise
which they cannot get in an enclosure of the order of about 20 feet in
length or in the house. Dig they will in the flower beds, but unless the
cats are many, the destruction caused is not usually great. Walls to walk
along are always popular, since cats do not like crossing wide-open
spaces. But if the garden leads easily to a road, something must be done
for the cats' protection, since modem roads
86
HOUSING AND HABITS
take a very heavy toll of cats. Wiring off a garden from a road is
necessary; something can sometimes be done about front gardens, by
giving a cat a fright there with a large borrowed dog, so that the visit is
not repeated. But if the Colourpoint shares the home with a dog this
experiment will not work. Some female Colourpoints will be content to remain within the
confines of a fair-sized garden, and at first the males may be the same,
but sooner or later they go exploring into other gardens. There may be
no harm in this, depending upon the neighbourhood, but more often
this wandering needs to be curbed. However, it is a normal activity for
the cat, and Colourpoints, although much more stop at home than 'alley'
cats, show the same sort of social and territorial behaviour described by
Dr P. Leyhausen' for domestic cats in general. A resident male is a great
deterrent to wandering by a female, which is usually undertaken prior to
a calling period and serves to scout out the local males. Colourpoints readily learn what they are and are not allowed to do in
their owner's house. But cats lack the human concept of honesty. They
will steal what they know they are not supposed to have, right under the
owner's nose, desisting at once when spoken to. They will behave
properly in the dining room at meal times in the owner's presence, but
when he is out they may sit in the middle of the table and claim it as their
right, as if it was an established custom. Some individuals learn to do
the most unnatural things, such as sitting up and begging for food like a
dog, but they will only do it when it pleases them, not necessarily when
it pleases the owner. A pair of cats each knew how to beg at the order
'sit'. The female would never beg for her dinner-the boy could beg for
two. But after dinner she would always beg to order, and at first was
rewarded with a saucer of coffee milk; he would not beg then. In later
years she would still beg when she didn't want the milk and refused it.
The begging ensured a bit of personal attention. The owner has a multitude of ways in which he can indicate to the cat
his displeasure at any particular action, provided he does it at once. The
cat, who expects a lot from his owner, has much more limited means of
conveying displeasure, but there is one very
'Leyhausen, R, 1965, 'The Communal Organization of Solitary Mammals', Symp.
ZooL Soc. Lond. No. 14, pp. 249-263.
87
,COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
strong retaliation which is at times meted out. Very, very rarely, but on
more than one occasion and by two of my cats, intense displeasure has
been registered about my going out in the evening, and on my return
hastily serving drinks etc. to visitors without a word to cats. The injured
party has mounted the settee beside me, turned her rear, and
deliberately soaked me to the skin, an act of supreme jealousy which is
certain to produce instant reaction, although not of a favourable nature
for the cat! These two cats normally have been meticulously clean in
their habits about the house. When all else fails this is the type of
behaviour they can fall back on. Up to the age of two years a male can easily be kept in the owner's
home, whether he becomes sexually mature at 13 months or two years.
But after that he will spray, which indicates a registering of ownership of
his surroundings and is impossible to stop. Some males are far more
unpleasant than others, one cannot tell in advance what is ahead. If the
male is to be a house pet he should be neutered under a year in age
before he starts this sort of thing. If he is required for breeding, then he
must have his own quarters. He need not live in them all the time, he
needs his freedom to do what he likes for part of each day, and he
prefers not to live alone. He will settle down happily with two or three
wives, all being given some freedom. The type of housing which is suitable depends in part on the climate.
Premises which are satisfactory for the British Isles will not do at all for
countries where the winter temperatures go below zero. In the Mingchiu
cattery in England each mature stud cat has his own house, a
prefabricated workshop, 5 X 7 feet with windows on three sides, a gently
sloping roof, not a gable, and a door with a pop hole (Photographs 39-
41). The house stands in an enclosure of at least 14 X 20 feet, the wire
(plastic covered 2-inch chain link netting except where there are kittens)
passes about 18 inches above the roof, so that the cats can sit there, a
pleasure they much enjoy (Photographs 42, 43). Larger runs are
desirable where space allow S. About 100 feet of floor boards per house and run provides shelves
inside the house and outside, at different levels, for the cats to walk
about on. A peat bunker in the house serves also as a seat for use when
grooming the cats. The walls are covered with polystyrene insulation
sheets and are faced with an adhesive plastic for
88
1
IN PURSUIT OF TYPE
Above: Two Mingchiu winners on different occasions of best Longhair kitten in
show, Blue-point left and Seal-point right. Middle: Champion Mingchiu Magog,
unbeaten on the show bench by any Black Longhair cat or kitten. She is an
invaluable Longhair Black carrier of the Colourpoint pattern, which she transmits
to half her offspring. Below: Gr. Ch. Mingchiu Murdock of Badi, a Seal-point male
aged 14 months, left, and 26 months, right, where his mask is fully developed and
includes the chin (cf. Photographs la, b). He was highest scoring Seal-Point male
and BOX Himalayan for the Southern U.S. Region 1968-9.       UNSURPASSED FOR THEIR
BEAUTY Left: Ch. Mingchiu Monique, a
Blue-point female in Summer
coat at 8 months, ears pricked
to the bright lights.
Right, above: Mingchiu Karelia,
Blue-point, at 3 1/2 months,
showing short, well-demarcated
nose, wide top of head, small,
well-directed ears, wide muzzle,
and very long coat. She was
best longhair kitten in show,
Ellesmere Port 1968 Below: Ch. Mingchiu Polo at 4
years showing flowing coat,
fine profile with firm chin, well-
demarcated short nose and
small cars.      25
26
27
KITTENS AND BOTTLE FEEDING Left: 4-week-old Mingchiu kittens needing
supplementary feeding. They are waking up and screaming for their bottle. They
cannot yet climb out of their box. See also Photograph 30 opposite p. 104.
HOUSING AND HABITS
ease of cleaning. The ceiling is lined with insulating sheets. Two wide
shelves are built one above another, with a 2-foot thermostatically
controlled tubular heater under the lower shelf. Shutters can in part
close in the lower shelf, so that, if required, a constant temperature of 60
degrees can be maintained on this shelf in cold weather, a necessity if
kittens are to be born in the house. Usually kittens are born in my own
house and not in the garden. The slight heating of the stud house keeps
it dry, and usually the general temperature is maintained only a little
above that of the outside, the door being widely open all the time in
summer and the pop hole open day and night in winter. The doors,
however, face away from the prevailing wind. The outside temperatures
seldom fall below 10-15 degrees F. The floor covering must be hard and
smooth so that it is easily cleaned. One upper window of the house is
usually always open, at least a little, and shelves run along the lower
level of the glass of the lower windows so that the cats can sit on them
and look out. There is about 9 feet of such window benching in each
house giving plenty of choice in roosting places. The prefabricated 'workshops' forming the houses of the Mingchiu
cattery have been erected in pairs, mirror images of each other, with
doors facing in the same direction, away from the prevailing winds. A
gap of at least 6 feet lies between each pair which is roofed by a curved
dome of translucent plastic, such as 'corroglase' (Photograph 39, right).
The open ends of this intervening space are completed with walls fore
and aft, a floor and a door of the same materials as the houses, one side
wall of each house becoming a party wall limiting a third middle house
or shed. The central curved roof passes insensibly into the sloping
roofs of the houses on either side, giving a much pleasanter general
appearance than that of separate houses, each unit of three being so
very much wider than it is high. Each run contains a plot of grass, some paving made with 'Kentstone'
or other tiling, set in pebbles and sand and close together, so that
draining is rapid and efficient after rain and the area does not puddle.
No cement is used here. Natural and artificial trees are included. Cats
particularly like individual seats well off the ground, the top of a small
stepladder is always popular, or the top of a cut tree trunk. Tiles such as
used for paving, 18 inches square, make
89
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
decorative and very popular 'tables' when set on a couple of decorative
cement wall units about 15 inches square, acting as legs. Both the top
and the space under the table for hiding and shade, are used by the cats
(Colour photographs V, XV, Photograph 42). Large tree trunks and
branches are provided for scratching, walking about on and for the
amusement of kittens. In a corner where the sun falls is a bed of catmint (Nepeta), wired in (Photograph 43 right), so that the cats can chew the
parts that grow through and do not destroy the whole plants. A peat
moss tray is provided both inside the house and outside in the run
under a permanent shelter from rain. which is also a bench (Photograph
42 left). The ground here is concrete for ease of cleaning, and a concrete
border to the pen of about 15 inches in width lies at the base of the
fencing, because it is in these positions that the cats are most apt to soil
their surroundings. Grass they enjoy in the summer, it is cool and
amusing to lie in, etc., but they do not respect it, and unless the
enclosure is very large indeed it is not practicable to have much of the
pen under grass. The surround to the house must be hard, and concrete
should lie under the house also, and so prevent tunnelling by rats and
mice from the outside into this nice dry area. The lower 3 feet of the fencing should be opaque on the windward
side and this may also serve to give shade in summer. Benches are
provided on either side of each run which are in shade either morning or
evening. Where there are adjacent pens the party fence is opaque on
the lower 3 feet, and above this the shelves in the two pens are not at
the same levels, or squabbles between the males would follow. Springs
on the gates to the runs are easily made from the double-hooked elastic
ropes used for attaching luggage to carriers. A permanent garden table near the gates, with a stone top, large
enough to take a tray of plates, is of great service. Flower beds surround
the pens, Nepeta and other flowers forming a bank outside the run wires,
which in summer stops most of the bickering between male cats free in
the garden and those in pens. A collection of different varieties of
clematis climb the fencing on the outside, providing shade for the cats
and interest for the observer, being planted so that their roots are in
shade (covered by slabs of stone) and their foliage in full sun. Flower
beds of a more extensive kind separate
90
HOUSING AND HABITS
the groups of pens, and the whole, with a lawn and the aviaries of
foreign birds, forms as spectacular and pleasant a small garden as
anyone might wish to have. In fact it attracts visitors from across all the
oceans, but unfortunately the cats are in full bloom when the flowers are
not. The Mingchiu cattery does not take in calling queens for mating, and
accommodation for this purpose therefore is not needed. The cats live
very happily in small family parties, but if all the girls are removed for
kittening and the male is left in sole possession, he voices his
displeasure in no uncertain manner. He does not like living alone. If
mating facilities are wanted for visitors, then some shut-in quarter for the
visitor must be provided so that she can make friends with the male
through the wires before they are put together. The reigning females
must, of course, be removed, or must live elsewhere. The
accommodation just described provides ample benching at a suitable
height for the male to make his escape from the female after mating if
need be. There are many catteries with good accommodation, constructed on
different plans and out of different materials, but the essentials are
common to all. The principal faults of much housing for cats advertised
in print and exhibited at shows are their smallness in size, the roofs are
gabled and the cats have no access to them, the benching is quite
inadequate to provide sufficient variety and interest to a cat, the interior
is too dark, and far too little thought is given to providing interest in the
run which is too small.
91
FOOD AND MAINTENANCE
12. Food and maintenance
As with housing, so with food: there is a great variety of suitable ways
of feeding cats, depending upon the available foodstuffs, but the
essential food values are common to all diets. An adult cat needs two
substantial meals a day and usually a milky mix as well. 'Neuter cats
often prefer to have only one meal a day, Pregnant and nursing queens
need at least three good meals a day and a milky mix. Kittens, when first
completely weaned, need five meals a d and the number should be reduced to four and three as the age
increases. Too much feeding with insufficient times between meals can
be as bad as too little. Some adult cats dislike anything containing milk.
All drink water in considerable quantities, and water should be available
at all times. Meat forms the principal component of the cats' diet, and preferably
in the form of small whole mammals. Usually this presents difficulties
and must be supplemented by lean meat from larger animals, and it
should be remembered that such meat is deficient in a number of
essentials present in a natural diet where bones, blood, brain, liver, etc.,
are also eaten. Fish should only form a small part of the menu and offals
such as leitz (lung), heart, melts (spleen) should not form a substantial
part of the food and are better excluded. Giblets are unsuitable, even
prepared gizzards. Food supplements in the form of added vitamins, A
and D from Halibut liver oil (or Adexolin); Brewer's yeast in powder
form, or Kitzyme tablets, provide ample vitamins of the B complex as well
as proteins and minerals, the former being the less expensive. Milk, oat
products, glucose, hard foods of some kind (e.g. Seanip, Purina Co.) and
bones to chew will ensure a cat in perfect condition. Eggs, particularly
egg white in kitten feeding, can take their place in the food. But every
cat will not accept the same foods, they have marked individual
preferences, and are prepared to starve rather than eat what they do not
like, however suitable the food value
92
may be. It is no use laying down the law about food, the cat's likes and
dislikes must be catered for. Few cats thrive on plenty of fish. Although some do so, others living
on such a diet will suffer from skin disorders and loss of coat on the
underside, which can be rectified if fish is withheld. Carbohydrates and
vegetables are not readily digested and should not form a substantial
part of the diet, because the cat cannot produce the appropriate
digestive enzymes. The eating of grass practised by most cats, particularly early in the
morning, possibly has some food value, but a service it clearly renders
is promoting a vomit, which gets rid of the hair swallowed by the cats'
grooming activities and leaves the stomach ready for breakfast. Not all
cats eat grass, and those that do not are quite healthy. They cough up
their fur balls usually with ease. As much variety as possible should be provided in the food, and if a
mixture of food is given at one meal it is better not mushed up so that
every mouthful is the same. Raw meat once a day is strongly
recommended and it is better not. minced fine. Larger pieces, preferably
of the dimensions of earthworms, give the teeth something to do, and
too large portions are not swallowed which will produce indigestion. For
kittens the meat is suitably cut to matchstick proportions for 9-10-week-
olds and onwards, but younger kittens need the meat more finely cut
and free from connective tissue; this is most easily prepared by
'scraping'. A sharp knife is scraped across a lean piece of meat, semi-
frozen for choice, and only the fine material so scraped off is given to
the kittens. The indigestible connective tissue, which may be abundant
within the meat, is left behind on the chunk. The preparation of raw meat for a number of cats is most easily done
with a hand or electrically driven slicing machine which slices the meat
at any required thickness such as those made by Ritter. For a small
number of animals a sharp knife on a wooden board is sufficient. All raw
meat should be kept in the freezing compartment of a fridge or in a deep
freezer and taken out just as required. Meat already minced needs to be
eaten at once, and only uncut meat should be stored for more than a few
hours. Meat should always be packed in polythene bags in a fridge to
retain its moisture and prevent needless frosting up of the fridge.
93
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Cooked meat, hares, rabbits, etc., should be thoroughly well cooked
until quite tender, either in closed containers in the oven (3 hours) or on
a gas or electric 'ring', or more conveniently in a pressure cooker for 30-
60 minutes at 15 pounds pressure. The water, added before cooking,
forms a rich jelly or stock containing valuable solutes which can all be
used up in the food, mainly as a basis instead of water, for making
porridge for breakfast out of Quick Quaker Oats. The porridge should be
thin in consistency, cats do not like it stiff. The most useful milk mixtures for adults, given either at midday in
between the main meals or at bed time, contain milk, glucose, and either
Scott's Midlothian Oat Food (M.0.F.) or Farex or raw egg. Glucose, to
the measure of a heaped dessertspoonful per pint of milk mix, is
sufficient; too much is to be carefully avoided. The M.0.F. is preferred
because it stimulates fine coat growth in Colourpoints; a level
dessertspoonful per pint of milk is made up according to the directions
on the packet. Similarly Farex can be used or a whole beaten up egg. It
should be remembered that plain cow's milk is often indigestible to cats
and should not be given. The addition of egg white to milk eases the
digestion of the latter. Since each cat needs only a tablespoon of milk
mix, the quantity made up will depend upon the number of cats. For kittens an ideal milk mix, which can be used also for bottle feeding
from birth, is made up as follows: Boil a large cup, and the business end
of a spoon and fork in a saucepan of water. Take out the cup with the
spoon and as cleanly as possible crack an egg and tip the white into the
cup. The yolk can be added to adults' breakfast porridge. Lightly whisk
the egg white with the sterilized fork and add to it boiled milk that has
cooled somewhat, otherwise the egg white will set. Fill the cup brim full,
adding also a teaspoonful of glucose. Cover, and keep in the fridge,
warming up small quantities as required. If this milk mix is used for bottle
feeding, remove some of it with the boiled spoon and fill the feeding
bottle, which has previously been sterilized by boiling or by some other
method. Do not return any unused mix to the main supply in the cup. Let
adults or large kittens finish up any left overs. Complan may be used as
part of the milk mix. The American product Esbilac (The Borden
Chemical Co.) seems to be ideal for kittens.
94
FOOD AND MAINTENANCE
Milk mixtures are essential to kittens and very good for all adults that
will take them, but it should be remembered that too much will invariably
lead to indigestion. A nursing queen can take perhaps three
dessertspoonfuls per day instead of the normal two, depending on the
queen; more may cause diarrhoea. Sometimes when a nursing queen is
very keen to drink milk it is better to give her the baby's egg white mix
described above, with or without a larger amount of egg white, rather
than the normal adult mix. The egg white will ease digestion, but
sterilizing utensils etc, need not be practised. The conversion of basic feeding principles into a diet sheet is open to
endless variations in detail. The diet of the adult Mingchiu cats is as
follows, the quantities given being for one cat, but even this is very
variable, depending on size, age and whether the cat is breeding or not.
Breakfast 2 dessertspoonfuls of porridge made with the stock
from cooking the meat of the day before (see above),
and about 21 oz. or more of raw cut up lean meat
2
(whale, horse, beef, cow or kangaroo beef), a little
cooked, sliced horse liver, and a little Saval 1 (a
puppy biscuit) crumbled on top, 4 drops of halibut
liver oil or Adexolin (Glaxo Laboratories). Two cats
with a tendency towards constipation have a little
Allbran crumbled into the food instead of Saval, or
a teaspoonful of Isogel (Allen & Hanbury) every
other day. One cat dislikes porridge and has plain
meat, another has plain cooked rabbit, but most
of them enjoy the porridge. All foods are served
warm.
2 p.m. 2 dessertspoonfuls of the M.0.F. milk mix served
warm.
5-6 p.m. meal Cooked meats (usually hare, rabbit or beef), as much as
they will eat, with a small quantity of cooked fish, 4
drops of halibut liver oil and a dusting of Brewer's
yeast. Seanip (Purina Co.) and/or Felix (Felix Catfood
Ltd., Biggleswade, Beds.) is put out in separate dishes.
95
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
10 P.M. For nursing and expectant queens, any of the above
foods that they like, but no more milk.
Cats need a certain amount of fat in the diet, but they cannot
assimilate much of it from fat meat, and most of their meat is better lean. A neuter cat does well on at least 4 drops of halibut liver oil per day in
most climates, but more is desirable if the season, or the climate, is
particularly sunless. More is always desirable when breeding. When
there has been too little vitamins A and D in the mother's food kittens
may be born with kinked tails or cleft palates, no genetical kink being
present in the breeding stock. At least 6 to 8 drops of halibut liver oil per
day is a satisfactory addition to the food of breeding females and 3 or 4
drops of this oil, or Adexolin, twice daily, for kittens in the English
climate. A good demonstration of the efficacy of added vitamins A and
D as a protection against some diseases was provided during an
epidemic of rhinotracheitis in London. Some 25 adult Minchiu cats had
been taking a regular 4 drops of halibut liver oil daily and did not
contract the disease, a killer in the neighbourhood at that time. One
neuter male, who always fed alone, bad only I to 2 drops of the oil daily
and he was ill for 3 weeks with the disease. Also six kittens aged 3 to 7
months had received only I drop of oil per day and all contracted the
disease, some seriously. A kitten, aged 6 months, had been given
adexolin or halibut liver oil twice a day since the age of 3 weeks, for
another reason, and he remained healthy. Two litters of kittens aged 4 to
5 weeks contracted the disease, but another litter in the same room,
given Adexolin twice a day from the age of 3 weeks, did not. Clearly a
desirable dose for weaned kittens is 3 to 4 drops twice daily in the
English climate and if infections are known to be about; and unweaned
kittens of 3 weeks onwards can be protected by I to 2 drops twice per
day, a very worthwhile precaution. A sufficiency of hard or raw food is necessary to keep the teeth in
order. Most but not all Colourpoints will take some Felix or Seanip daily
and other more expensive foods of this kind are available. A few have a
passion for eating raw whiting, starting from the tail, a kind of fish much
preferred to other sorts of
96
 X PROGRESS
Above: An early Colourpoint with a fine frill and good blue eyes, which are so easy
to obtain combined with much too long and straight a nose.
Xl Below: Ch Mingchiu Mudoba showing all features of a good type Colourpoint.
FOOD AND MAINTENANCE
sea fish. A sinall fish, raw, or a lesser portion of a larger fish, eaten once
or twice a week keeps the teeth in perfect condition. Bones to chew at
from the joints cooked for human meals are always popular, and again
suffice to preserve the teeth. Cats living entirely on soft foods soon
acquire disordered mouths which lead to decay, cancer and endless
troubles. But until kittens have grown their permanent teeth, and have
shed their milk dentition, they are not capable of eating as much hard or
raw food as the adults, and may get indigestion from swallowing too
large pieces of meat. However, large chunks of meat to chew are useful,
even if the kittens do not swallow much of it. If a cat's gums show a red
line along the base of the teeth, hydrogen peroxide, diluted one part in
ten, brushed on with a soft brush daily for a few days, may cure the
condition, which should then be followed with some improvement in the
diet. For cats as well as humans, a diet that suits one individual perfectly
may not be so suitable for another. A tendency towards constipation
can be dealt with by mixing some Allbran into the food; this step is not
welcomed by the cat and must be done with discretion. A
dessertspoonful a day is a great help and can be crumbled into the
breakfast porridge instead of cat biscuit (Saval 1). A little liquid paraffin
at night is also useful, given by a large polythene pipette or more easily
just added to the meal., or Isogel may be used, see above. A cat with an
unpleasant breath can be improved by half a tablet of milk of magnesia
at bedtime, or a *smear of the fluid preparation put on the nose to be
licked off. One Mingchiu stud cat was habitually too thin in the body,
and had an easily irritated skin and harsh coat. Three months of half a
tablet of milk of magnesia at bedtime transformed him, and the treatment
as been repeated occasionally. His skin and coat are as they should be
and his frame is well covered. Cats and kittens when moving homes are sometimes put off their food
by the change and may refuse to eat for days. The worried new owner
wonders what to do with an animal that will not eat any of the things
that it is said to have been having. It is worth putting on record that few
cats can resist a kipper, even if they have never tasted one before, and
some have broken their fast upon tinned tuna. Once food has been
taken, then the menu can be varied, and normal feeding soon
established. One five-month-old
0
97
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Colourpoint broke a five-day fast upon smoked salmon, and after that it
was plain sailing! The feeding of kittens is further considered on p. 118. Coats need attention, particularly when moulting. Then it is desirable
to put a coarse comb or plastic brush through the coat daily to remove
the loose hairs. Otherwise dense hard felts of fur form close to the skin
which are difficult to remove. For most of the year a Colourpoint largely
looks after its own coat, but grooming is always desirable, although not
a daily necessity. Dusting the coat fortnightly, or when required, with G-Hex
(McDermott Chemicals Ltd., Runcorn, Cheshire, England) is a very easy
way of controlling fleas effectively in summer. This is a very important
matter, because cats can bring in many unwanted passengers when they
go for walks, and the eating of an infected flea leads to tape worm. I find
this preparation far more efficient than any of the more easily obtainable
advertised products. Whether the flea is infected or not depends upon
the neighbourhood; in some places every flea is a danger, but in others
this is not so. Banks of ivy, in which cats push their way after birds and
mice, and sometimes long dry grass are a menace in harbouring fleas.
These can hatch out when the vibration of the cat's presence reaches
the pupa, in which stage the parasite can rest for years on end. Brushing
a coat free from the marks left by fleas should be done and all brushings
should be cleanly removed afterwards, because flea larvae feed on just
this material, made from the cat's blood by the fleas. The presence of a
tapeworm is evident from the rice-like white segments of the worm which
adhere to the outside of the faeces. Treatment is best done by either of
the preparations: Cestarsol (May & Baker Ltd, Dagenham, Essex) or
Scolaban (Burroughs, Wellcome & Co.); the latter causes no reaction by
the cat and can be used on pregnant females, but only adult cats of 12
months and over can be treated with either of these cures. Infections in
kittens are much more difficult to deal with and your veterinary surgeon
should be consulted. Treatment for roundworms is much easier and
there are many suitable products on the market. The beautiful powder-puff coat of the show cat, in which every hair
stands away from every other, is easily obtained by using Johnson's
Baby Powder, or some similar relatively scentless
98
FOOD AND MAINTENANCE
talcum powder. Sprinkling the powder into the coat once a day for six
days, and on the seventh day brushing out well, gives the desired
effect. Particular attention should be given to the most greasy parts of
the coat, behind the ears, and in males the top few inches at the base of
the tail. The heavy grease on the tail is best removed by applying plenty
of Fuller's earth. brushing out the next day as far as possible, and
repeating the process daily until the fur is perfectly clean and a fine
fluffy brush decorates the cat. If you are on good terms with your cat
none of this grooming presents any problem, many of them enjoy it very
much. But there are a few who dislike talcum powder intensely; it makes
them salivate and they become miserable. Fuller's earth (Rouse Bros.
Ltd., London W.1) can be used for the whole coat in such cases. The
type of brush or comb matters a lot. Except during moulting, when loose
fur must be taken out, a comb should be sparingly employed. A brush
with coarse flexible plastic teeth is much better, because it does not
destroy the coat. There is no need to bath a Colourpoint. They all hate
getting wet, although sitting about in the rain is often not objected to,
because the thick pelt in winter keeps the skin dry, even in the rain. Cats swallow some of their coat when doing their own toilet, and this
fur is normally vomited up with no difficulty. But when heavily moulting
the fur ball may be massive. If the cat goes off its food at such a time the
fur inside may be causing trouble, and a dessertspoonful of liquid
paraffin at bed time, for one or two nights, usually relieves the
condition. Ears must be kept clean, preferably with lotion obtained from a
veterinary surgeon. Infection from other cats with ear mites is readily
acquired, and spreads rapidly from one cat to another. Treatment with
Otodex (Strenol Products Ltd, 240 Earls Court Road, London, S.W.5) is
the most easy and effective, and it is best applied from a pipette, not
more than 3 or 4 drops being put well into the car. If more is used it does
not hasten the cure but marks the coat until the next moult. Treatment
for 4 days is sufficient, following the instructions on the bottle. No
cleaning is required. Slight fur stains made by using too much Otodex
may not be apparent in daylight, but show up extremely under strip
lighting, such as sometimes used to illuminate show halls.
99
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
It is not infrequent that even the best kept cats need to take a pill or
capsule prescribed by a veterinary surgeon. It is not usually difficult to
administer a pill if you do it correctly and quickly. Otherwise the cat may
resist so strongly that the situation becomes very distressing. Go to the
cat when he suspects nothing and turn his nose upwards by putting
your hand over the top of his head. Quickly lower his jaw, with the other
hand if need be, and drop the pill exactly down the throat, shut the
mouth, holding it shut for a moment. If your aim has been good, he will
swallow the pill and forget about it. But if the aim has not been good he
will twist his tongue until he spits out the offending pill. A second
attempt, if needed, meets with greater resistance than the first. A cat
sitting in the unfamiliar surroundings of the veterinary surgeon's
surgery will behave perfectly, when at home he may fight and resist.
When a cat deliberately regurgitates the pill, after you think that it has
been truly swallowed, you may push the pill quickly past recall with the
tip of your little finger. But if in real difficulty make a simple 'pill pusher' out of a piece of
polythene tubing, about I-inch diameter; a 3 1/2-4-inch length is
sufficient. Make a cut at one end for about 1/4-1/3-inch on two sides
of the tube, so that pills of different sizes can be pushed into the open
end and stick there. Have a rod of polythene which loosely fits into the
tube and is about half an inch longer. A drawing pin can be fixed into
the end of the rod, forming a convenient knob. The 'rod' can be made
from tubing of the right size, with the end solidified by heat from a small
flame. Plunging the rod fully into the tube will push out the pill inserted
into the split end. So charge the 'pusher', open the cat's mouth, not very
wide is enough, hold the tube between first and second fingers, and
quickly put the pill end into the throat, push the knob with the thumb,
and withdraw the tube. The job is done and the pill delivered past recall
in a moment and before the cat realizes what has happened. With this
simple instrument 1 once delivered capsules of Penbritin to 57 strange
cats in 43 minutes, including walking considerable distances about a
cattery to reach the cats; the owner's estimate for the job was many
hours and much blood spilt. Get someone to hold a cat for you, if you
like, while you manipulate the 'pusher'. A cat breeder has good use for a
pill pusher of this type, a polythene
100
FOOD AND MAINTENANCE
pipette and perhaps a glass kitten feeding bottle, all of which are easy
to come by and easy to clean. if in further difficulty with the administration of a prescribed medicine,
wrap the cat or kitten in a towel first, the head projecting. This impedes
unco-operative movement, mainly because widespread sensory
stimulation of the hairs of the cat is thus effected. A cat wearing a wide
cylinder of paper round the middle will often fall down and seem unable
to walk because of this stimulation. Cattery housing and runs need to be kept very clean. Besides
washing and sweeping, the floors, walls, paving, etc. need regular
wiping or sponging down with disinfectants after they have been
cleaned in the ordinary manner. Care must be exercised in the choice of
disinfectant, since those containing phenols are unsuitable for the cat's
feet. Izal (Izal Ltd., Thorncliffe, Sheffield) is cheap and effective, but
leaves the surfaces slightly sticky, unless wiped again. Benzalkonium
chloride leaves no stickiness, a 1 per cent solution known as 'Roccal' is
ready for use and the relatively cheaper 10 per cent solution of
Benzalkonium chloride can be diluted (Berk Pharmaceuticals Ltd,
Godalming, Surrey). In summer all crevices in houses and runs, the
grass, etc can be sprayed with 'Lindane Dust', 'G-Hex' or other
Gammexane containing preparation, about 0.6 per cent, in order to
control fleas, ticks, etc. The use of a 'Gammexane smoke generator No.
22' (Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd) is recommended as needed for
insect control in animal houses. After infectious disorders, both viral and bacterial, it is essential to
use more drastic measures. Normal cleaning finished, all surfaces can be
wiped with Lysol and then wiped again with clean water. Fumigation of
a room or house for cats with formaldehyde vapour is easily and
effectively achieved. The room must be well closed, and about 100 cc Q
cupful) of 40 per cent formaldehyde is poured over about 100 gm (1 oz)
of potassium permanganate crystals placed in a metal container and
standing upon something which is heat resistant. Leave the room shut
until the following day. If some cats but not others have an infection, all
feeding plates can be rinsed in 1 per cent Benzalkonium chloride
(Roccal) and left to drain and drip dry. To do this at all times is a wise
Precaution since it prevents spread of infections by the plates.
101
13. Breeding and general management
If you have a Colourpoint female and wish to breed from her, you
should appreciate that it is an exacting job which must be done properly.
It is no use thinking that you will have a queen and just breed from her
occasionally when it happens to suit you. You must either breed from
her properly, when she wants to breed, or have her spayed and kept as a
pet. There is no intermediate road which spells either health or
happiness for the cat. If you decide to breed you must also decide on
how you are going to obtain a mating unless you have your own male.
Successful breeding is very much easier if you keep a breeding pair of
cats. If your queen must travel even a small distance to visit a suitable
stud, the chances of obtaining a successful mating at the first attempt
are slight. The queen may go off call because of the journey, or because
of the strange surroundings. She may not like the male, she may be
frightened and huddle in a comer for days, she may be furious and
attack the strange boy and drive him away, so that he is intimidated,
only to resume her yelling when she gets home. One may have to try on
half a dozen successive calls before achieving a successful mating, or
one may be lucky at the first attempt. And continual calling without
successful mating does the cat no good. She does not eat well and
possibly ovarian cysts, which prevent future breeding, may be formed in
this manner. A Colourpoint may call (come into season) as early as 8 months and
successfully rear her family, but it is much better for her to be mated
later. It is unusual to call so young, but Ch. Mingchiu Mopette did it,
and I helped her with the feeding of the kittens. And Mingchiu Danladi
(Self-chocolate Longhair) most competently raised a litter of 5 when she
was only 10 months old herself. But breeding at over a year in age is
usually better. Breeding young may result in kittens but no milk.
However, when this happens usually all goes well at the next litter. The
increase in the in
102
FOOD AND MAINTENANCE
tensity of light and in the length of day are the main stimulants to
breeding, and most females will call in January to March in England. If
they reach the age of a year in the autumn they usually do not call until
early the following year, but if they are 11 months old in February they
are likely to call. Good breeding females sometimes do not begin until
nearly two years of age. Breeding may take place at any time of the year. Male Colourpoints usually take longer to become mature than
females. Rarely a stud will sire at 13 months or younger, usually he is
much older, and he may not be useful until two years of age. But the
slowness in reaching maturity does not indicate future inefficiency as a
stud. Every male I have raised and kept for my own use has proved to
be an efficient and reliable stud. Most of the Mingchiu females are good
breeders also, but I have had a few females who produce more kittens
than they can rear without getting thin or receiving help in the way of
supplementary feeding. Only two females in the Mingchiu cattery have
not succeeded in breeding, out of the many Colourpoints produced over
ten years. The success of breeding, and its frequency, depends in large
measure on the health and happiness of the cats. Several Mingchiu
queens produce three litters a year and thrive on it, others produce only
two or one. The number of kittens in a litter is usually smaller than in
Siamese. It is also variable, two to four being the most usual numbers.
Less frequent are the litters of five or six. I have had one litter of nine, all
of which were reared, three by the mother and six were bottle fed,
changing round the three daily. Thereby the mother remained in nice
condition by the time the kittens were fully weaned on to plate feeding. Successful breeding, without kitten losses, depends also on how
much the cats trust and care for their owner. Most of my queens like me
to be near them at kittening. Two habitually fetch me for the event. It is
necessary to give a little attention and often. One of my oldest
Colourpoints lost only three of her sixty-three kittens. One was too large
and was born dead, and twice she accidentally nipped the kitten's
tummy when eating the cord. I saw to it that she did not do this again,
by putting my hand round each new born kitten until she had finished
eating the placenta. But the
103
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
owner must not do anything which the cat regards as interference. It is
necessary to be sure that the kittens are being fed adequately and if not
they must be bottle fed or a foster mother found. Very rarely is the latter
necessary, but I have had one excellent breeder who never came into
milk fully until near the end of the first week. The litters all thrived on 5
bottle-feeds the first day, 4 the second, 3 the third, and so on until the
mother took over entirely. The owner must also learn to understand
what a cat wishes to impart. A queen may come along crying, or tail
wagging, or she may dump a kitten at my feet. It may mean her box is
too hot, or too cold, or too this, or too that, or that she has not enough
milk, and it is up to the owner to understand and act upon it. If
everything is going well it is self evident, and the kittens will be silent
except when disturbed by their mother's comings and goings. If more than one Colourpoint is kept for breeding, there are
advantages in that one female can help another with too little milk, so
that the owner does not have to supplementary feed. Mingchiu Snuff
produced her first litter with no trouble, but she had no milk. Her
kittening box was in the same room as that of Mingchiu Trivia. who had
kittens a week older. Trivia listened to the hungry wails of the newborns
until she could bear it no longer. Quietly she crept out of her box, took
Snuff's kittens one by one out of their box, added them to her own and
fed them. Snuff did not mind. 1 provided them with one very large box
for the two litters and the mums joined forces. Trivia did most of the
feeding while Snuff did the washing and baby sitting. The combine
worked excellently. Usually it is better to keep the litters quite separate, or there may be a
lot of baby snatching, and far too many kittens will find their way into
certain boxes and endless stealing will go on. Most queens have a
complex about bigger and better babies, and may go to great lengths to
acquire kittens larger than their own. But do not cage the queens. It may
seem convenient to box up the mothers with their litters, but the lack of
exercise may lead to constipation and other troubles. A queen does not
like using a tray close to her sleeping box and she likes to walk around
at will. Her general health is the better for it and that means a good
supply of milk and least work for the owner. When several litters are
housed in
104
KITTENS AND BOTTLE
FEEDING Right: 'Our plates of food are
coming'. Mingchiu kittens aged
9 weeks. Below: A 6-day-old
taking his bottle. Note the way
in which the kitten and the
bottle are held; the level of the
milk in the bottle is only just
above the level of the mouth,
no more.  
30
 31
32
THE BACKGROUND
Above: Mingchiu Trivia, a Seal-pointed Shorthair carrying the genes for Longhair,
Blue, and Chocolate. She produced kittens with short, long and intermediate coat
lengths, and the points were, Seal, Blue and Chocolate, but the type was poor for
Longhairs, see p. 64. Below: An early Mingchiu Blue-pointed kitten lacking good
demarcation between nose and forehead (cf. Colour Photo  33
Above: Mingchiu Mirabelle, a Chocolate-pointed prize-winning Siamese, with her
litter of pure Siamese kittens. Contrast the type with that of Colourpoints and
with the shorter face in Photograph 31. Below: A male Seal-pointed Colourpoint
with fair coat, short, well-demarcated nose, but undesirable large upright ears set
too close together (cf. Photograph 33 above and Colour photographs IN,
Photograph 2, etc.). 34
 35
36
PROGRESS IN TYPE OF LITTERS Above: Litter aged 9 weeks from Briarry Roxana, 1960,
one Blue-point, five Sealpoints, they were best Longhaired litter at Exeter, 1960,
but the type is not good; contrast the noses and top of head with those in the
kitten below. Below: 1968 Mingchiu kittens at 9 weeks showing the great
improvement in type upon those shown above.
BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT
one room it may be convenient to have barriers between the litters
which will keep the kittens separate when small and let the mums come
and go as they please. If there is any chance of litters being mixed, mark
the kittens with lipstick in the ear. Here the mark remains for a few days,
but marking the tummy with lipstick needs daily renewal because the
mothers lick it off. At Snuff's next litter she had milk of her own, but would she feed her
new-born kittens? No! They were not so large, nor so impressive as a
short-haired blue in the kitchen! All her energies and ingenuity were
expended towards getting to the kitchen to feed that which did not need
feeding. She was adamant, so again a foster mother was required to rear
her very nice Colourpoints. She never looked at them again and soon
was calling for a mate. At her third kittening, it was a 4-month-old kitten
in a garden pen that took her fancy, but this time she did not win. Her
kittens were bottle fed and for 12 hours after their birth she was shut up
with her heart's desire, the 4-month-old male. In the morning she was
much chastened after his rough biting and sucking, and she was then
shut up alone for a further 12 hours during which her milk piled up.
Then, in the evening, she was permitted to go to her own kittens, and
she meekly crept into her box and fed them, and after that reared them
perfectly. A little psychological and not veterinary treatment was
required. But there is a moral to all this: never let a queen play about
with other cats' kittens before her own are born. It stimulates the bigger-
better-kitten complex. At birth Colourpoints are white or cream in colour with pink noses,
foot pads and ears. In a few days pigment forms in these parts
(Photograph 30), and gradually the new hairs growing, as size increases,
demarcate the 'Points', the nose, ears and the middle of the face, the feet,
legs and the tail. The mask spreads gradually, and in males the dark
colour of the ears almost joins with that of the face but it takes two
years to spread (Photographs 1 and 21). In females the mask is always
less extensive. If there are seal and blue-points in a litter, it may not be
possible to distinguish them for certain under the age of three weeks.
And the same is true of Lilac and Chocolate-points together in the same
litter. But if there are Chocolate and Seal-points in one litter, the
distinction is clear from birth, the Chocolates being much whiter and
pinker than the
105
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
Seals. Lilac-points can similarly be distinguished from Blue-points at
birth, The apparent type of kittens changes with their age. At first all ears
are small and usually set pleasingly on the head (Photograph 8), the face
is round and the nose may or may not be as one would wish. But noses
that seem fine to start with may elongate in late kittenhood, and noses
that are too straight at 6 to 8 weeks may shape up later and become well-
demarcated from the forehead and entirely 'good type' in the end. After
the baby prettiness comes a lanky and unlovely stage with a gawky
appearance, large ears (Photographs 4-6), upright and pricked
(Photograph 4), and the breeder may despair of any of them being any
good. But the body then grows to fit the ears, the face and body fill out,
and the gawkiness may or may not pass. The kitten in Photograph 5
became the champion in Photographs 17 and 18. At first all kittens of a litter may be much alike in appearance, and the
potential winners of the show bench, in litters of well-bred kittens, can
usually not be picked out until the age of at least 3 1/2-4 months,
possibly much older. Coat length may come early or late, it depends
upon the inheritance and the weather and time of year. Good type in
kittens depends very much on their parentage, and the chances of
breeding a top flyer from parents both of which are champions is much
greater than from parents which are less good in type. But in any case
the finest typed kittens are very few and far between, and consequently
are very much prized for future breeding (Photographs 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 23).
There is considerable variation in type among kittens from the same
parents. One litter may contain one or even two outstanding kittens and
the next two or three litters may contain none (Photographs 35, 36). Some practical matters may be noted for the assistance of
inexperienced breeders. First, how do you know when your queen is
calling? This may be very obvious, but it may not be so. The voice is
not so penetrating or loud as that of a Siamese, but usually the sounds
are unmistakable. The cat wants to go out, to wander, and goes off her
food, sometimes having eaten much more than usual just before the
obvious signs of calling set in. The period may last a week or more, and
the most propitious time for mating is about the third day when the call
is at its height. But so often
106
BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT
things are not like this. Some Colourpoints call only for one or two days,
and the signs are best read by a male cat and may pass unnoticed by a
human. Such females may be mated regularly by males who live with
them, but they are obviously very difficult to get mated by a male living
at a distance. Sometimes a female knows when she is about to call
before her owner does, and she may see to it that she gives everyone
the slip, later returning home mated and before her noisy period begins.
A journey, a strange male and strange surroundings may put a queen
off call entirely, or she may be just unco-operative. Or with a keen and
understanding stud cat success may be achieved at the first attempt. If a queen has not been successfully mated, she may start calling
again in a fortnight, particularly in the spring, and go on like that
repeatedly, to the detriment of her health. Or she may not call again for
some months. When there is difficulty in getting a queen into kitten for
the first time, it is as well to let her be mated by any cat, an alley cat of
her own choice if need be, and for the next litter she will probably be
more amenable. Whether the mating has been successful or not, the
queen may go on calling until the end of the period, the length of which
is normal for her. Continued noise does not mean that the mating has
been unsuccessful, but sometimes a noisy caller may quieten down at
once after a successful mating. Immediately after a successful mating the queen will scream, roll on
the ground and lick herself, and may chase the male away. The owner of
a stud Colourpoint should watch the pair, because unless the act is
watched there is no knowledge as to whether it has been achieved. But
if the queen is unco-operative, the best that can be done is to leave her
for a few days with the male and hope for the best, because no one can
watch the activities for 24 hours a day. If she hides by day she will
usually come out at night. During pregnancy the cat should receive just as much food as she
will take, increasing the meals to three per day besides a milk mix (see
above), but do not feed in between meals or indigestion may be caused.
The duration of pregnancy is usually 63 to 65 days. About a fortnight
before the kittens are due the queen should be introduced to her
kittening box, and it is important that she should be satisfied with it. A
useful size is 18" X 18" with a pop-hole a few inches above the floor
level, and a lid that can be removed or
107
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
opened. The box should be closed to start with, and it can, with
advantage, have a small rod fixed along the walls some 2 inches off
the floor so that the mother cannot accidentally squash a very young
kitten by leaning on it against the sides. Mother cats have supreme
faith in their young getting out of the way when they lie down, and
this the little ones are adept at doing, but only after the age of a
few days. Plenty of paper should be put in the box, and the queen will dig in it and tear it to bits about five days before the kittens are
born. Do not let the queen wander the week before kittening, or
she may find some inviting coal hole or garden shed, or set her
heart on someone else's perambulator as a potential site for kittens.
But do not cage her, she needs all the exercise and normal freedom
she can have. It is best to be with your cat at kittening, but do not interfere
unless you are quite sure that you know what you are doing and
that the cat trusts you. Do not be too impatient, and keep the lid
of the box shut, except for inspection. She may produce the first
drops of discharge the day before the kittens are born. The birth
of the first kitten of a litter may take time, and if it is a first litter,
the cat may or may not get momentarily worried. Two things
should be watched for. When the kitten is free, the mother will lick
it and break the transparent membrane which may cover the head,
if it has not been broken during the birth. It is essential that this
membrane be broken at once so that the kitten can breathe air.
Next, do not let the mother wander about with a kitten dangling,
before the placenta or afterbirth is produced. This may not become
free from the womb for a little time after the baby is born, and no
great tension should be exerted on the kitten by the cord, or fatal injuries may be caused. If the queen is very restless, and usually she is
not, then an understanding owner can save the kitten by holding it
until the placenta is free. The mother will then proceed to eat the
placenta. Watch that she does this, and that she does not eat too
much of the cord, and thereby injure the kitten. Watch too if a
kitten should be produced and the placenta left behind inside. At
the end of kittening you should know, for choice, whether all
placentae have been produced. If one is known to be still within,
the mother should be taken to the vet at once, where she can easily
be treated, and she will return and settle down; but otherwise she
108
BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT
may not lie down and may become very ill, her temperature will
rise, she will produce no milk, and unless attended to she may die.
A few cats take no interest in the placenta, and then it is necessary
to sever the cord with scissors which have been dipped in boiling
water. The cat's mouth is not sterile when she severs the cord, but
all needless risks of infections spreading up the cord from the cut
end, which may lead to death of a kitten in a few days, should be
avoided. The time interval between the birth of one kitten and the next
varies considerably. A second may follow the birth of the first in
a few or in some twenty minutes. The whole litter may be born
within one or two hours, or it may take very much longer. If the
births are slow, the queen may settle down and feed those that are
born, but she may be restless until all are free. If she is restless,
tossing herself about, it is sometimes desirable to park the babies
on a blanket over a warm bottle, leaving her perhaps one to keep
her interest centred on the box, and give her the lot when kittening
is over. Be in no hurry to summon a vet because your queen is slow
in kittening. To speed her up may spell disaster. And do not worry
if kittens arrive tail first instead of head first, the usual way round.
But prolonged labour with no results calls for expert assistance. Some time after all kittens are born, not at once, remove the wet
paper and settle the family down on clean paper, several layers so
that it is soft to lie on, but do not put in a blanket, or make the bed
too soft. Kittens can easily be squashed if they sink into a soft substratum, or if their claws, all long at birth, catch into woven
material. Claws slip on paper. Later, when the kittens are a few
weeks old, blankets can be used with safety. Do not disturb the
queen. She may care for a good drink of milk, egg-white and
glucose (see p. 94), but otherwise let her settle and sleep and feed
the young. If she will not settle down, if she gets in and out of the
box, and wanders about refusing to lie down, either something is
amiss inside or she has no milk. Do not hesitate, give the kittens a
warm bottle or an electric pad under a blanket and leave them
arranged so that they can move away from too much heat if they
wish, and take the queen to the veterinary surgeon. Some simple
treatment will put her right. Occasionally a queen with nothing organically wrong with her
109
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
at all refuses to settle down and feed her kittens, and follows the owner
about. In such a rare case 1 have put a small temporary cage round the
cat and her kittening box and given her a sedative (phenobarbitone),
also reducing the light in the room. There being nowhere else to sit the
queen sits with her kittens, they suck her as she becomes drowsy, so
establishing the milk flow. After each meal she was freed to walk about
the house and soon the cage could be dispensed with. Do not move the position of the box in which the queen has kittened.
If you do, she may decide she does not like the untrustworthy box, and
start carrying her newborns about, dumping them in various places
where they will get cold or die. If your cat does this sort of thing after
kittening it is a sure sign that you have not been treating her properly.
She must have access to her box beforehand and she must be satisfied
with it. Often 1 give my queens a choice of boxes. Sprinkle the kittens and the box with G-Hex at some convenient
moment, even if you believe your queen to be flealess. If she has any
they will move off on to the kittens, and the eating of an infected flea at
an early age may result in fully-grown tape-worms a month later,
perhaps dozens in one kitten. Cures are difficult in young kittens and
persistent tape-worms may kill the kitten or ruin its digestive capacities
(see p. 124). When the mother has settled down after kittening, respect her privacy
and do not let strong light fall on the pop-hole. A watch must be kept to
ascertain that she is feeding the kittens properly. If all is quiet the little
ones are probably all right. If they cry repeatedly something is amiss;
but have patience for a few hours, although see to it that none are being
sat on. If the babies at first do not seem able to find the nipples, and if
you cannot squeeze out any fluid from them, do not at once assume that
she will have no milk. The supply may not become established for some
hours after kittening, and if you leave the family alone the babies will
suck and the milk will probably come. The kittens will be quite all right
without food for some hours, and it is important that they have the
colostrum secreted before the milk. Do not start hasty supplementary
feeding that may not be required at all. But if the babies are noisy and
there is no milk 8 or 12 hours after birth, it
110
BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT
is as well to give them a bottle feed (see below p. 120), but do not repeat
the feeding for another 5 hours at least. If you feed the babies too much
they will be satisfied and not suck the mother, and she will not be
stimulated to produce the wanted milk. But kittens must not be allowed
to get weak from starvation. Some queens, as noted above, are
habitually slow in coming into milk. Others can be brought into milk with
a suitable injection, but in most cases Colourpoints make the most
excellent mothers alone and unaided. If no sounds come from the litter
except when the mother gets up, or when she comes back to settle down
again, all is going well. But if the kittens are continually crying, then
something is wrong, and if the temperature of the box is satisfactory, it
is likely that there are feeding difficulties (see further below). Kitten
boxes within earshot of the owner at night are a great convenience,
because one knows with no trouble at all, whether the kittens are quiet
or not. Colourpoints can bring up their kittens in an unheated house in
winter in England, the mother curling round them and keeping them
warm. But this is not the best arrangement. The kittens are warm until
they want to walk about, and then it is too cold for them, although they
may survive. It is much better to have a kittening box in a reasonably
warm room, 60 degrees F, but not too hot. Whether extra heat is suitable
inside the box depends on the cat. Some Colourpoints can only be
described as fussy, and hardly leave their kittens for a moment. No box
heating is then needed. But Briarry Roxana, for example, a most efficient
queen, does not believe in spending one more moment inside her box
than is absolutely necessary. She always has a good 'head' of milk on
her, she feeds her brood rapidly, as from a bottle, she licks them, 'puts
them to bed', and walks away. They can bawl if they like, she is
unmoved-knowing that they are quite all right and will very soon be
asleep. She goes for a long walk or sits in the garden watching birds, all
more interesting than sitting in a dark box while babies sleep. She stays
away for several hours and then returns to her job. But she trusts me to
keep the box warm, and this is done by tying an electric pad to one side
of the box so that the kittens can cuddle up to it if they like, and the
mother can keep away from it. She has no need of extra heat herself with
her long coat. If the
ill
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
box is too hot the queen will not sit in it. Other females feed their young
at very frequent intervals, and never seem to have much obvious milk
because it is taken off by the kittens as soon as it is formed. It is such
feeding that has given rise to the idea that kittens must be fed
frequently. Well-fed young kittens are asleep almost all the time. They are quiet
unless disturbed, and the middle of the body is nicely rounded and
turgid. An inadequately fed kitten is awake and wailing and its little
sides do not bulge. Increase in weight normally is rapid. At birth the
kittens may weigh 212-4 oz and the larger ones may put on 4 oz in
weight in a week. If in doubt as to how kittens are doing, weigh them
daily, either singly or all together. If they are not putting on weight as
they should, something is wrong. If one kitten is smaller than the others,
it may have difficulty in competing for a place at the milk bar with its
stronger siblings. If this is so, then supplementary feed the little one
(see p. 120) who may then catch up with the others. If you suspect that
all is not well with the mother take her temperature with a thermometer
inserted at least half an inch into the rectum and left there for -3 minute.
Her temperature should be 102 degrees instead of the normal 101.5
degrees for a non-nursing cat, and if you find it is more, then consult
your veterinary surgeon at once. Great care should be taken over her
food, which is best more finely divided than usual. The increase in
quantity which she needs should be given as more cooked rather than
raw meat. And do not give more milk per day even if she has a passion
for it, but with other foods respect her choice. Indigestion must be
avoided if a good supply of milk is to be maintained. Egg white, either
alone or mixed with a little glucose, may be a help if a queen is inclined
to eat more than she can manage. A watch must be kept on the state of the nipples. Only some may be
in 'use, depending on the size of the litter, but if one becomes blocked
and a gland inflamed trouble will start. A bite from a kitten with teeth
may initiate an abscess.' At all times be on the look out for abnormal
occurrences. If the queen cries out when the babies suck, or stands up
to feed them instead of lying down, there is probably something wrong
with the mammary glands or nipples or an abscess is forming in or near
those parts.
112
 SPRING IN AN ENGLISH GARDEN
Ch. Mingchiu Monique aged 6 years and Briarry Roxana aged 10 years pottering
about free and enjoying the smells of plants and soil.
37
38
40
 PARTS OF THE MINGCHIU
CATTERY Above: A bird's-eye view by a
wide-angle lens gives extreme
foreshortening of a house for
one male and two females. Ch.
Mingchiu Shan sits on an
outside shelf, one female
sunbathes upon the roof and
the other on an outside bench.
The door of the house is open 
and the run is more extensive
than can be seen. Left: The left-
hand side of the house,
showing windows and access to
the roof by tree trunks. 41
BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT
Inspection will show the cause of the trouble; a blocked nipple will
cause swelling and a redness of the skin over the gland, or an abscess
can be present, as a hard painful lump either in the mammary glands or
outside them. Hot fomentations, using a pad of cotton wool and warm
water and a heavy dose of antibiotic, such as Terramycin, may very
soon relieve the condition. It is of course better to notice what is going
wrong and put it right before the cat's temperature rapidly rises to
something of the order of 106 degrees and her life becomes endangered.
If your first aid is not quickly successful, consult your veterinary
surgeon. When the kittens are about three weeks old the lid of the box should
be removed, or the mother will decide on a housemove for the whole
family, and put them somewhere where there is more light. Kittens' eyes
open any time between the fifth and the tenth day, and they suffer
greatly if exposed to bright light too soon. Eye troubles are easily
acquired, and young kittens should be kept in low light intensities until
they can stand more. Any sticky or discharging eyes should be treated
with one of the many antibiotics prepared for this purpose. At 31 to 4 weeks the kittens will usually come out of their box to run
about, tail upright behind, returning to it to sleep and feed. Do not be
alarmed if their weight drops instead of gaining, although the feeding is
adequate. For three or four weeks the kittens are becoming more and
more active and are learning to eat and digest food from plates, their
increase in weight per week is slowed down, or it may actually fall. From
9 to 10 weeks onwards the rate of increase is re-established. A 3-month-
old may weigh 3 lb and a 4-month-old 4 lb, but there is much individual
variation, and kittens weighing little do not necessarily make smaller
adults. An adult female weighs between 61 and 8 lb and an adult male
usually between 8 and 10 lb, but 15 lb is not rare. A start on feeding from
plates or spoons can be made at the age of 4 to 5 weeks-, but as soon as
food is taken in that way, a litter tray must be provided close at hand,
and the kittens will straight away learn to use it. The mothers do not care
for cleaning up behinds after solid food is taken. Sexing young kittens may be quite easy, especially if both sexes are
represented in one litter, but this is not invariably so. Some
H
113
39
 COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
males can appear very like females to start with, and a mistake may
easily be made. In the male the two openings beneath the, tail are further
apart than in the female, and for a few weeks there may be no more
difference than this. Later the incipient scrotal sacs in the male make
their appearance. Male kittens usually grow faster than females, but it is not always so.
The adult male is a larger heavier animal than the female. But at birth the
sexes may be the same size and not infrequently one of the larger kittens
in a litter is a female and not a male. A really large kitten of 5 oz; birth
weight is a calamity, because the mechanical trouble attending its birth
is seldom survived. It is not intended to give an account here of abnormal conditions in
breeding which lie in a veterinary province, but it may be useful to note
a few abnormal, though not infrequent, occurrences which can be
looked out for by the breeder. Really healthy, happy and well-fed
animals make the best breeders, but sometimes difficulties cannot be
avoided, although mismanagement may make them worse. Termination
of pregnancies can occur at any stage; and pseudopregnancies in which
there are no embryos, and resorption of embryos are well-known
phenomena. In the early weeks, a rolling and perhaps a howl for a
moment, with or without a vaginal discharge, is a warning that
something is not right. The chances of observing the moment when this
occurs are small, and all that is known is that there is no pregnancy
some weeks after mating. If this behaviour is observed veterinary advice
should be sought. A red discharge from a queen believed to be in kitten
calls for expert advice. Kittens born prematurely are frequently eaten,
unless they are within a week of full term, and the eating may pass
unobserved. Many of these troubles are due to infections in the genital
tract which are not apparent in the cat who seems perfectly healthy, and
expert advice should be obtained. Pregnancies may terminate with a
discharge of white matter from the vagina, and unless this is completely
put right, no further breeding may be possible; the sign is an evil one.
The birth of kittens a week or a fortnight too soon may result from
genital infections, or nervousness, and treatment is probably indicated
before, and perhaps after, the next mating.
114
BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT
Sometimes kittens are born a few days early and are successfully
reared by the mother, with or without help. But if one or two kittens are
born early, followed in a few days by the rest of the litter, the mother
usually will not come into milk for the firstborn. They can be bottle fed
until the mother can take over. The cause is probably some genital
infection, and the queen should receive treatment or she will do it again.
There is also such a thing as dual conception, resulting from eggs being
fertilized on different days, maybe by different sires. Ovulation occurs in
the cat at the act of mating. In such cases the kittens will be born on
different dates, and mechanical and physiological difficulties ensue. For
this reason queens should not be mated on many successive days, or at
least 2 days should pass in between matings, even if she is very willing.
When there are a few drops of red vaginal discharge or some fluid from a
queen a few days before kittens are due, one fears the worst and hopes
for the best. Nothing much can be done about it but wait and see.
Normal kittens may or may not be born. Kittens born dead, either whole
litters or individuals, may not be accounted for by mechanical trouble,
and advice should be sought. Abnormalities such as cleft palates,
lensless eyes, kinked tails, etc., may result from too little vitamins A and
D in the mother's diet. Single kittens which do not suck properly may
have cleft palates and are doomed; or sometimes they are suffering from
an infection which has spread up the cord from the cut end and that also
means they cannot be saved. Kittens which seem normal at birth and peter out in 1-4 days, in spite
of plenty of available milk, indicate maternal infections which need
treatment. The queen may appear to be perfectly healthy with nothing
wrong with the genital tract that can be felt by a veterinary surgeon.
Such an occurrence should be treated most seriously, and it may be best
to give every queen in the cattery, and perhaps the males as well, an
injection of streptomycin if such occurrences are not to be repeated by
the same and other queens. Unnecessary losses of kittens may thereby
be avoided and the expense of treatment is well worthwhile. All
divergencies from the expected must be dealt with effectively if further
breeding is to be successful. The birth of abnormally large kittens, 5 oz or more, usually
115
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
leads to difficulties. If the kitten becomes arrested when half way out,
the mother can be helped by gentle manipulation when she exerts
pressure to expel the kitten, but it must not be pulled by hand from
without, because irreparable damage to the kitten will result. If a birth is
very slow, or if the kitten arrives tail first and the head end is in
difficulties, there is always a danger of death by suffocation as there is
no access of air to the mouth by the time the placenta is detached from
the mother. When a litter is apparently thriving it sometimes happens that
suddenly the kittens refuse to suck, although the mother has plenty of
milk; or if they suck they tend to vomit, or their tongues may become
ulcerated. This does not usually occur before the age of 4 weeks, but is
not infrequent between 5 and 8 weeks. The queen should be given half a
tablet of milk of magnesia at bedtime for several days, and perhaps a
purge (teaspoonful of castor oil). Testing the milk with litmus paper may
reveal acidity; milk of magnesia is appropriate treatment, or a daily tablet
of sodium citrate may neutralize the milk acidity. Alternatively the queen
may be taken off the kittens entirely, and they can be reliably fed from a
bottle or from individual plates five times a day. A young queen who is
exerting herself too much in feeding her first litter, becoming thin in the
body, often produces milk of unsuitable composition towards the end of
lactation, and the kittens do better without it. Ulcerations in the mouth
start with local swelling, the skin becomes white and peels off leaving
red, raw areas. These should be painted with T.C.P. several times a day
using a soft brush, and small knobs of butter that have been mashed up
with T.C.P. can be put in the mouth. Sometimes a whole litter or single kittens show signs of indigestion at
5-8 weeks of age (vomiting, loose motions, etc.). If you know that your
plate feeding is blameless it is better to take the mother away and plate
feed entirely (see next chapter) when the kittens should at once return to
normal. If they do not, even when soothed by raw egg white given
several times a day, it may be best to give Nuvamide, or other
prescription from your veterinary surgeon (see next chapter). Cats used for breeding often acquire scratches at the time of mating.
Sometimes the male will bite the neck of a difficult female
116
BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT
so hard that he breaks the skin. Such lesions are easily treated by
pouring a few drops of hydrogen peroxide on to the raw place, and
repeating the application until the skin is dry and healing.
117
14. Feeding kittens and bottle rearing
Kittens that are very well fed by the mother are not easy to feed from
plates until 5 weeks or so in age, but if the mother is not doing very well,
a start with a milk mix can be made at three weeks and the kittens can be
independent by five weeks. Normally it is better to leave them with the
mother until the age of eight weeks. The feeding of kittens needs
endless care because indigestion is easily acquired and it not always
easy to cure. But by taking trouble there never need be any kitten
indigestion. A beginning can be made usually between 4 and 5 weeks of age. A
teaspoonful once a day of the kitten egg-white mix (see p. 94) makes a
good start, and can be given from a spoon or from a small individual pot
or plate. Something of the right size and heavy is the best, otherwise the
kittens upset everything before they have learned the art of tidy lapping
(Photograph 16). By 5 to 6 weeks they should be taking the milk mix
twice a day, but more often if the mother gives up feeding them, as rarely
occurs. The kittens at 5 weeks should be taking a very small amount of
scraped meat (see p. 93), only about as much as will lie on a sixpence to
begin with, and fine cut rabbit (or chicken) for the second meal. Four
small meals a day, two of the milk mix and two of meat, are enough while
the mother is still feeding the kittens. It is essential to keep the meals
small. If a mother stops feeding the kittens at 7 weeks they should have five
meals per day, two of meat, cooked and raw, and three of the milk mix,
the first meal being as early in the morning as convenient and the last
just before going to bed. At eight weeks of age the most enthusiastic
mum should be removed, leaving her with the kittens at night, but not in
the daytime, for a few days before this. Kittens eat and lap at very
different rates, and it is useful not only to give individual plates
(Photograph 16) but to see that each kitten gets what is prepared for it.
Or, if several feed off
118
FEEDING KITTENS AND BOTTLE REARING
one plate, the amount put out should be minimal, and when the plate is
empty the kittens that feel not full enough can be given more in private,
away from the gluttons. From 7 to 9 weeks of age the kittens thrive on 4-
5 meals a day, the quantities of food being kept well in check because
some will probably overeat if they get the chance. At 9 to 10 weeks a
sudden inability to digest as much milk as before sets in, and the milk
mix must be given only twice and then once a day. This is a very critical
age for feeding and one in which trouble starts for the unwary. Indigestion or diarrhoea may stem from simple overfeeding, or from
feeding 'match stick' (p. 93) meat too soon instead of scraped meat, or
from giving too much milk mix, or from catching cold by running about in
floor draughts, or from internal infections. Great cleanliness of
surroundings and litter trays is essential and do not let young kittens
help themselves from plates of food prepared for adults. If in trouble, do
not treat with antibiotics for supposed internal infections until you are
quite sure that your feeding is not at fault. If you give antibiotics and
there is no improvement, then your feeding is probably not right.
Mingchiu kittens are weaned on to scraped horsemeat, beef or
whalemeat and cooked rabbit, using the egg-white milk mix to start with
and the M.0.F. mix (see p. 94) from about 9 weeks onwards. Complan can
be used; kittens like it at first, though they soon tire of it but will then
take half Complan and half egg-white mix. Complan is very useful
because of its digestibility, but it must be given only with plenty of
other foods or a condition of rickets rapidly develops. Any sign of
impaired ability to run and jump is a warning that the food is
unbalanced, and prompt appropriate action reverses the disorder very
quickly. Never feed kittens in between meals at any age. When there is slight
trouble with digestion in kittens, caused by overeating, etc., it is useful
to cut down the quantity of food given; to give a pipetteful of liquid
paraffin at night and so hasten the removal of the offending matter; and
to soothe the interior by giving teaspoonfuls or half teaspoonfuls of
egg-white several times a day, or put some lightly whipped egg white on
top of the meat at meal times. If a kitten has been vomiting, leave it
unfed, quiet and warm for some hours, or for the rest of the day if its
temperature is normal (101.5
119
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
degrees F), and give a little raw, slightly whipped egg-white next
morning. The appetite may return rapidly, but be sure that the raw and
cooked meat offered is finely divided, that too much milk is not being
taken, etc. or the undesirable condition will return. If you cannot cure
your kitten's indigestion within a very few days go to your veterinary
surgeon for treatment, because the kitten will otherwise become
emaciated and cease to grow. Remember that feeding 6-10 week olds is
very critical and great attention must be paid to it if troubles are to be
avoided. But if your kitten vomits and shows a sudden rise in
temperature (103-106 degrees F) go to your veterinary surgeon with the
least possible delay, and isolate all associated kittens. If bottle feeding is necessary a suitable small feeding bottle must be
used which is made for the purpose. It is curved, open at one end for
cleaning and filling, and carries a teat at the other end, the teat in fact
being usually the rubber valve made for cycle tubes. The teats can
easily be renewed by replacing on the glass nozzle. The teat should
have a hole in it of just the size to allow drops of milk to escape when
the level of the milk in the bottle is a little above that of the teat. If the
hole is too large a jet of milk will flow from the bottle, as from a tap, and
if it is too small the milk cannot be sucked out by the force that a kitten
can apply to the teat. The size of the hole should be carefully adjusted
by experiments with water. The milk mix should be prepared as noted on
p. 94 and the bottle sterilized before each feed. The mix should be warm,
but not hot, much cooler than a 'hot drink'. Holding the bottle of milk
against the skin of one's face below the nose is a good way of testing
the heat, which needs to be just right or the feed will be refused by the
kittens. An easy way to warm a kitten's bottle of milk, which has been
filled by a sterilized spoon from the prepared mix in the fridge, is to have
a piece of wire netting in a saucepan of hot water and stand the bottle
on this momentarily, with the teat above water level. If everything is
arranged just so, bottle feeding is no trouble. To feed a kitten, place him on a warm cloth on a table in front of you.
Raise the head and when he cries insert the teat into the mouth and
against the upper jaw, gently steadying his head (Photograph 30). Keep
the level of the milk in the bottle not too
120
XII THE NEWER COLOURS
Above: A Lilac-pointed Colourpoint, Mingchiu Sulafour, whose good type has
resulted from 11 years of planned breeding.
XIII Below: Mingchiu Lilak, the first Self-lilac Longhair, a variety which is home
zygous for Blue and Chocolate.
 XIV THE NEWER COLOURS
Above: Lilac-pointed and Self-lilac Longhair kittens, Mingchiu Sulafour (left) and
Mingchiu Bini (right).
XV Below, left: Chocolate-pointed female, Mingchiu Vanessa at 8 months.
right: Self-chocolate Longhair female, Mingchiu Koca at 12 months with Mingchiu
FEEDING KITTENS AND BOTTLE REARING
high over the level in the teat, so that you do not cause too much fluid
pressure. As the warm milk drips into the mouth the kitten will swallow,
he will stop trying to move his head away, and will suddenly suck
vigorously. When the kitten has taken all he wants he will let go of the
teat, and it is most important not to overfill a kitten by force. Let him
take what he wants and no more. Do not hold his head on to the teat.
Replace the kitten with the mother, or keep him warm until you have fed
the next, in order not to get muddled as to which kittens have been fed
and which have not. If need be, it is very easy to rear kittens entirely on a bottle from birth,
and to do it without destroying the owner's sleep at night. Never give
more than 5 feeds per 24 hours. It is quite needless to feed three-hourly,
and such practice usually produces indigestion in normal healthy
kittens which spells their end. For the first three days the kittens can do
with a feed at 3-5 a.m., but after that age they will sleep soundless, from
last thing at night, 10.30 to 11 p.m., until 7 a.m. or so, the remaining feeds
being evenly distributed during the day. Let them sleep in the early
morning and feed them when they cry. Motherless kittens can at first be
kept in a small closed basket, on a pad of cellulose wadding which partly
covers an electric pad running at its coolest. Right over the pad is too
hot for the babies, and they will collect at the place where the
temperature is most comfortable for them. Clasp the lid in order to avoid
all interference by adult cats. After each feed dab the behinds with cotton wool; the kittens will all
perform to order, but do not hasten them, and usually they will not soil
the box, at any rate to start with. Normally the first bright yellow faecal
mass is produced 24 hours after feeding starts. This is repeated daily,
but if the interval is two days and the product soft and normal, do not
worry. Only if you are sure there is real constipation should you give
one drop of liquid paraffin with a feed. I have bottle reared many kittens
and have never had occasion to give any liquid paraffin. If kittens get
themselves or each other in a mess, or if they get their fur wet on tummy
and back legs, it is necessary to clean them carefully as for human
babies, and dry off with talcum powder or skin troubles will ensue. Kittens managed in this way will sleep without moving for 7 hours or
so in the basket, but 5-hourly feeding is suitable timing.
121
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
When the mother has some milk, but not enough, it is useful to give one,
two or three bottle feeds per day, and the mother will look after the
nights and the washing of the kittens. (Photographs 25-28). Actually the
washing of bottle-reared kittens when they reach the age of 4-9 weeks is
much more trouble than the feeding. They get their faces in a mess at
meal times and need careful cleaning after every meal in order to avoid
spoiling the fur and getting eye infections. Sometimes a disappointed
mum with no kittens can be left to do some washing at this age, but it is
unsafe to leave her enjoying herself with tiny kittens because she may
sit on them. From the age of 8-9 weeks the kittens learn to wash their
own faces properly. Never bottle-feed unless you are sure that it is necessary. Well fed
kittens in charge of the mother are actually difficult to feed from a bottle.
However, it must be remembered that hungry kittens need some initial
persuasion to suck from the unnatural object, but as soon as they get
the idea they are very pleased to see the bottle (Photographs 25-28), or
to suck from it before the eyes are open.
122
15. Worms and inoculations
Two types of parasitic worms should be recognized and dealt with by
cat breeders: roundworms and tapeworms. While much information of an
imprecise nature has been known for a long time about these pests, it is
only quite recently that a proper study has been made of the life cycle of
the roundworms.' These worms, several inches in length when adult,
may be infrequent in kittens, but if their presence is made known, the
kittens should be wormed under veterinary supervision. The kittens will
then remain immune from further infection for some months. The initial
infection in kittens is intra-uterine in origin, and therefore it is essential
that the breeding queens should be free from worms before pregnancy
begins, or newborn kittens may be already infected. It is unwise to give
worm treatment during pregnancy. The young worm may or may not
make an excursion through the tissues of the kitten before establishing
itself in the intestine. In puppies there is always this excursion. The eggs
of the roundworm also pass out with the faeces of the adult cat or kitten.
They are very small, and the egg shells are incredibly resistant to
desiccation and even to strong chemicals and disinfectants, which do
not penetrate the shell, even on total immersion for a long time. The
eggs blow about in the air, or they can be licked up off the fur, and are
easily swallowed. In the stomach the eggs hatch out into a minute
larvae, which then makes an excursion through the bloodstream, liver
and lungs and back to the intestine where the worms become mature.
After the age of a few months a kitten previously cleared of round
worms can become reinfected when a period of immunity is past. Tapeworms are a much greater menace than roundworms in certain
districts, where infected fleas abound, and are a real danger
'Warren, E. G., 1967,'Toxocara and Neoascaris, Studies on Morphology,
Development and Migratory Behaviour'. Ph.D. Thesis of the University of
Queensland, and shortly to be published.
123
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
to small kittens. Infections may be extremely heavy, the bulk of the
growing worms filling much of the intestinal space. In time the mature
segments of the worms will appear in the faeces, but long before that the
kittens may become thin, show impaired appetites, loose motions, etc. If
the apparent indigestion cannot be put right by attention to the diet, or
treatment for indigestion as such, a tapeworm treatment is essential if
the life of the kitten is to be saved. The younger the kitten the more
difficult it is to give a safe treatment, and the attempt should be made
under veterinary supervision. Great pains should be taken to avoid all
tapeworm infection of kittens by absolute control of fleas. The tapeworm utilizes two hosts for the completion of its life cycle.
The adult tapes in the cat or kitten produce enormous numbers of minute
eggs, again with resistant shells, which pass out with the faeces and can
blow about and lie dormant for a long time. An intermediate stage of the
worm lives in the flea. While the life cycle of the parasite has long been
known, that of the flea in all its details, has only recently been worked
out.' An adult female flea can live unfed for up to 17 months. She needs a
blood meal before copulating and again before egg laying, thus no
breeding is possible entirely away from the host, the cat or kitten. The
female lays some 400-500 eggs which drop to the ground and hatch out
in a slightly humid atmosphere. The larval stage of the flea, a minute
maggot, lasts for from 1 to 24 weeks according to the temperature and
humidity. The maggot feeds on dust particles containing organic
material. Early naturalists fed them on the 'branlike substance which
sticks to the comb when puppies are combed' to which organic refuse
was added. The latter is provided by the female flea 'which during her
interminable meals, squirts out quantities of undigested blood through
the anus." It is impossible to rear fleas if the iron content has been
extracted from the blood fed to them. The larva spins a silk cocoon, pale
brown in colour. Within it the pupal stage may last for 2 weeks or over a
year, without feeding, waiting for the outside stimulus, a vibration
caused by the footfall of a passing cat, and bursts out within a split
second. The flea thus reaches the cat. If an accident happens to the flea
of
'Rothschild, M. and Clay, T. 1952, Fleas, Flukes and Cuckoos, a Study of Bird
Parasites, i-xiv, 1-304 pp., 99 photos, 4 maps, 22 drawings, Collins.
124
WORMS AND INOCULATIONS
being eaten by the cat or kitten, then the resting stage of the tapeworm
is freed in the stomach of the cat or kitten and passes down to the
intestine to become the adult tapeworm. It is clear that the cycle can be
broken not only by careful attention to coats (p. 98) but by general
cleanliness that will break through the rest of the flea's life cycle. No
dusty undisturbed crevices should be permitted anywhere in a cattery or
premises frequented by cats, and dry undisturbed litter, dried up
vegetation and dirt should be put out of bounds for cats. The roundworms and tapeworms parasitizing cats are host specific
and cannot live in man, although the same species of parasite can occur
also in the dog. These general types of parasite are found rarely in man,
but the species are different, as are the intermediate hosts, and none has
anything to do with cats. No Colourpoint is safely launched upon its way without being
inoculated against feline enteritis. Usually it is recommended by the
makers of the vaccines that a first inoculation should be given at 61
weeks of age followed by a second in over two weeks from the first,
because the time taken for immunity to develop is about 10 to 14 days.
Young kittens are immune because they are taking in antibodies against
the virus from the mother's milk. The kittens must be treated at such a
time as to induce them to make their own antibodies as a protection
against the disease. The giving of the first injection at an earlier age has
been frowned upon because it is said that it might have little effect, the
kitten still having a sufficiency of maternal antibodies. It is worth putting on record some serious troubles that have been
experienced with more than one make of vaccine upon Colourpoints,
and the manner in which the disasters have been overcome. It is
generally agreed that after an inoculation a period of a few days follows
in which the susceptibility of the kitten to feline enteritis
(panleukopenia) is actually increased, and that care should be taken not
to expose the animal to infection during that time. Actually very many
kittens of various ages from 61 weeks
and onwards have succumbed to the disease, becoming ill 6 or 7 days
after inoculation with one make of vaccine; many died and some were
saved by intensive treatments. It was noted that there was a greater
chance of recovery in kittens affected by the vaccine
125
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
when inoculated at 61 weeks of age than at 81 weeks. This means that at
61 weeks the kittens were benefiting by the presence of maternal
antibodies to a greater extent than at 812 weeks. It therefore seemed
desirable to increase the antibodies in the young kittens to a level that
would enable them to live through the critical days after inoculation by
whatever means. First inoculations were given of a half or quarter dose
and at the age of 41 weeks, followed by a half or a full dose at 51 weeks,
a full dose at 71 weeks and another full dose at 9-1 weeks. Not a single
kitten
succumbed to the disease, although this treatment is against the current
recommendations concerning early inoculations. At the present time all
Mingchiu kittens receive a half dose at 4-1 weeks
and full doses at 6-1 and 81 weeks and no trouble of any kind has
been experienced for a number of years.
All adult Colourpoints, whether they be kept for breeding or as pets,
should be reinoculated once a year against feline enteritis, and
preferably in the late winter or spring when the disease is not about.
126
16. Postscript
The names of the many champions mentioned in the preceding pages
have been included so that the verity of the statements made can be
checked by anyone wishing to do so. But the impression should not be
given that champions in this country grow upon every bush. Each one
has been the best kitten selected usually from a large number of litters.
Moreover championships in England cannot be won in a day. On three
separate occasions and under three different judges must the aspirant
win the open class and in addition a Challenge Certificate. Even the
finest Colourpoints have only a limited number of days per year when
they are looking their best and their coats are full. That most of the Colourpoint champions have been bred in the
Mingchiu and Briarry catteries is no accident; and the Mingchui cattery,
owning at the present day the greater number of British Colourpoint
champions, did not have a flying start in the quality of its first
Colourpoints, few in number, acquired from the Briarry cattery. The Mingchui cattery is not large; there is place for but seven stud
cats used for the breeding of six different varieties, the four colours in
Colourpoints and the two new Self-coloured cats, besides of course
Black and Blue Longhair. The quality of the Mingchiu cats stems from
their manner of breeding along the scientific lines given above, using
the two methods: the so-called quick and popular method of selecting
from Colourpoint to Colourpoint matings, favoured here as in many
other countries; and the much more profitable, but slower, method of the
judicious use of self-coloured carriers of the Colourpoint pattern to
bring in the genes wanted for all the finer details of the Longhair type. The 1968-9 show season came just twenty-one years after the
initiation of Colourpoint breeding in the Briarry cattery., and what a
coming of age it has been! In Britain Ch. Mingchiu Mudoba
127
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
(Colour photographs 1, V), as kitten and as adult, made nine consecutive
wins of his open class and was nominated for best in show each time; he
was best Longhair kitten in show once and later best Longhair cat, as
well as champion of champions. He stands on an equal footing with the
best of the old established varieties of Longhair cats. Abroad the
Mingchiu cattery headed the list of top scoring catteries breeding any
varieties in Canada and the U.S.A. with ten regional wins for the season.
There are now a number of Mingchiu Grand Champions. How gratified
Mr Stirling-Webb would have been had he lived to see these
achievements, which vindicate the effectiveness of using Persian or
Longhair cats of other colours for the advancement of Colourpoints, as
described above. The life-long affection for each other of two cousins, Brian and Harry,
gave origin to the Briarry cattery and to its name. On their untimely
deaths, almost within a year, four of Mr B. A. StirlingWebb's cats made
their home in the Mingchiu cattery. Two have been of assistance to, but
have not played an integral or indispensable part in, the breeding in
progress, and the other two have been spayed and kept for sentimental
reasons. In the fullness of time the flower garden in which the Mingchiu
cats live will be empty and the aviaries of foreign birds silent (the cats
think they are put there for 'their amusement') but all over the world
breeders with understanding can breed the 'cats with the delightful
temperament', which is the heading of the Mingchiu cattery notepaper.
Year after year letters come, which joyously confirm this caption. The Mingchiu cattery owes its name to two much-loved cats long
dead: Ming, a very ordinary Seal-point Siamese, but my first breeding
queen, and Chu, a Chocolate-pointed Siamese and founder of three
generations of top-ranking cats. Having achieved my then ambition in
producing wonderful eye colour and fine type in the Chocolate-pointed
Siamese, and having sent some of these kittens to foreign lands, I fell in
love with Colourpoints, which meant abandoning all I had built up. The
descendants of Chu were spayed and space was found and acquired for
the breeding of Colourpoints. But a fitting memorial will be left to my
two Shorthair cats and to my first stud cat, a Seal-point Siamese of
character by the name of Wong.
128
Above: A corner of a run showing wooden shelves and boundary walls of concrete
(right) and wood (left) below the wire netting. Ch. Mingchiu Polo sits on the
shelter for the trays, Ch. Mingchiu Mudoba sits on a stone table and a Selfbrown
kitten is on a shelf. These two males live amicably together although mature. Below: Another corner showing, in addition, the grass plot and wired in bed of Nepeta (Cat-mint) on the right. 42
43
 Appendix:
Coat colour of cats and of other mammals
The colours, patterns and textures of the coats of Colourpoints and of
other domestic cats are related in different degrees to those of the wild
fur bearing animals. There are some which share the Longhair feature
found in domestic cats. The Angora rabbits are a parallel, in which the
coat can be three times the normal or wild type length. In both cats and
rabbits this character is controlled by the recessive genes 11 (see p. 34).
Guinea pigs also can be long-haired. The Rex coat in rabbits is caused
independently by one of three separate genes which are also recessive.
Two different Rex (see p. 16) producing genes have turned up in recent
years in domesticated cats in different parts of England and in Germany.
Both are recessive, ", and called gene 1 and gene 2. A Rex gene 1 cat
mated to a Rex gene 2 cat produces only normal coated kittens carrying
both Rex genes in the heterozygous state (see p. 22). The Rex genes can
be associated with the characteristics of most, if not all, Shorthair
varieties of cat. The appearance of an animal is determined in part by its genetical
make up and in part by the environment in which it lives, the typical
structural features of each species being the result of a balance between
these two attributes. If one or the other is drastically altered then the
appearance of the animal, or of its progeny, is changed. The Red Deer of
Scotland are a stable species in this locality with wellknown features.
But Red Deer removed from Scotland and transferred to New Zealand
become appreciably unlike the parent stock in a few generations. They
are larger with differently proportioned bodies. It is the selection
pressure exerted by the environment in its entirety, that is by climate,
food, other animals acting as predators or prey, augmentors or reducers
of the food supply, parasites etc., which maintains the stability of the
appearance of each wild species. Under domestication the selection
exercised upon animals is, or may be, very different from that exerted by
the normal environment; genetical changes may occur which are not
eliminated by natural
129
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
selection. Protective coloration and camouflage are no longer of
paramount importance, and colour varieties may turn up under
domestication by a reshuffle of existing genes, and persist. The existing
varieties of domestic cat have arisen in this manner. But many of these
colours are repeated in parallel by many species or orders of mammals.
The genesis of coat colour variations has been seen in the golden
hamster during the last 30 years or so in which this animal has been
domesticated. These colour varieties of hamsters are not known in the
wild, and first turned up after a few generations of domestication. The
coat patterns of domestic cats have turned up in a similar manner and
have been developed by cat breeders. Only more recently have new
varieties been created purposely on a genetical basis, as described on
previous pages. Coat colours are repeated in a parallel manner by many different
species of mammals, either the full range or only some of the patterns. A
study of the genetics of mice, cats, rabbits, etc. demonstrates the
existence of similar sets of genes controlling colours in these animals,
and, moreover, these genes exhibit similar dominance relationships to
each other. Thus it is probable that the loci of these genes on the
chromosomes of these several mammalian species is also similar, and
that these genes are homologous from species to species. But, since the
number of chromosomes (see p. 19) in different mammals is not the
same, exact correspondence between colour patterns of one species and
another is not to be expected. Fullest information concerns the inheritance of coat pattern in mice.
Here over 40 loci have been recognized on the chromosomes (see p.
19), each being associated with a related series of genes, known as
allelomorphs, which are alternative to one another, such as c' and c, the
genes in cats determining the Siamese and the Burmese colouring
respectively. And as well there are many modifiers which result in a
continuous series of colour gradation in domesticated mice. In cats, as
yet, the series of colour varieties is largely discontinuous. Modifying
genes are present but have not been referred to as such in previous
chapters; their effects have been noted, mainly in association with the
features of shape collectively known as type. It is to be hoped that
breeders will be discriminating enough not to produce a continuous
series of colours and patterns and shape in cats as has been produced
in mice.
130
APPENDIX
There are four related series, or groups, of colour patterns in cats
which are repeated in many other species of mammals. The usage of the
higher and lower-case letters and hyphens below and in the table on pp. 134-5 is explained on page 134.
1. The Agouti series AA or Aa, dominant Agouti, aa Non-agouti.
Agouti is the wild type coat, found typically in mouse, rat, vole, guinea
pig, cat, dog, fox, badger, pig, etc. Each hair possesses a terminal or
subterminal band of yellow, due to phaeomelanin pigment granules, the
rest of the hair showing black or brown eumelanin pigment. Mutant
genes determine whether the phaeomelanin band is lost, as in non-
agouti coats, or extended on the individual hairs as in yellow coats. The
Agouti character of hair is distributed among cats as noted on p. 16, see
also pp. 134-5 below.
2. The Brown series BB or Bb dominant Black, bb Brown. The gene for
black pigmentation B is always dominant over that for brown b, and
only a bb animal is brown in appearance. This series occurs in many
mammals, such as mouse, rat, deer mouse, hamster, vole, rat, pig, mink,
cattle, sheep, horse, man. Both colour and shape of the pigment
granules are affected by these genes, and the b gene affects eye colour
also in some mammals. The recessive b seems to be the wild type in
some mammals. In cats the Shorthair Chestnut, or Chocolate Brown, is
homozygous for non-Agouti and Brown with the symbols, aabb (see p. 134), and the Longhair Self-chocolate carries the 11 recessive
genes for Longhair in addition, aa bb 11.
3. The Albino series C. This series controls the intensity of hair, eye and
skin pigmentation. It occurs in cats, rabbits, mice, chinchilla, coypu,
dogs, mink, fox, etc. At one end of the series is the C, or full colour,
dominant and, usually, the wild type, and at the other end is the albino c
lacking pigment in coat and eyes. The amount of pigmentation is
reduced step by step, the yellow phaeomelanin being first affected and
then the black eumelanin.
c ch Chinchilla (Silver)
c b Burmese & Siamese
c Albino
131
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
132
The Chinchilla gene removes the phaeomelanin from the agouti band,
producing Silver Tabby in agouti cats (tBtBcCHcCH). It also slightly
reduces the intensity of black, as in the Smoke cats with dark tipped hair
over a lighter base. Further reduction of black in Burmese cats aa cBcB gives a brown coat. Chinchilla is dominant over Burmese, but Burmese
is only incompletely dominant over Siamese, aacScS, the aa & cB cats
being lighter than aa cBcB cats. The genes producing the Siamese pattern in cats are similar to those
in the rabbit, guinea-pig and mouse. Albino cats, if they really exist, are
very rare. White cats with orange or blue eyes are determined quite
differently by a dominant gene W producing white.
4. The Dilute series D. The intense colour D is always dominant over the
dilute colour d. These genes, as in the C series, affect the intensity of
coat and eye colour, but by a different mechanism, that of clumping
together of the pigment granules rather than by a decrease in their
number, as occurs in the C series. In cats the series so far recognized
consist of intense colour D and the 'Maltese dilution' d, which causes so
called Blue varieties of cat, rabbit, etc. In mice there are intermediate
members of the series. A Blue Shorthair cat is thus aadd and a Blue
Longhair aaddll. The D series occurs in mink, rat, mouse, cat, dog, fox,
but not always the full series. Lilac is produced in both Shorthair and
Longhair cats by the addition of Maltese dilution dd to a genotype
containing homozygous brown bb. Thus Shorthair Lilac is aaddbb and
Longhair Lilac is aaddbbll. Similarly Lilacpointed Siamese and
Colourpoint or Himalayan result from the addition of Maltese dilution to
a Siamese or Colourpoint genotype, thus a Lilac-pointed Siamese is aacScSbbdd and a Lilac-pointed Colourpoint is aacScSbbddll.
The Tabby series. The Tabby series found in cats is absent from most
mammals, in contrast to the four series just considered. It consists of:
(i) The Mackerel Striped Tabby which is probably the wild type. It is
dominant, TT or Tt, over the striped types of Tabby. A Lined Tabby
is recognized by some as distinct from the Mackerel (see Robinson
1959, footnote p. 34). (ii) The recessive Brown Blotched Tabby tBtB probably originated in
Europe from the striped cats and has spread from there. APPENDIX
(iii) The Silver Tabby is usually a chinchillated Blotched Tabby
tBtBcCHcCH giving the blotched areas a silver appearance.
(iv) The Red Tabby carries the sex-linked orange gene (see chapter
8), the colour made as rich red as possible by modifying genes. The
Tabby allele is usually the blotched, so that the Red Tabby male is tBtB 0 and the Red Tabby female tBtBOO.
(v) The Abyssinian cat is almost uniform agouti and appears to
carry the wild type Tabby genes Ta and A, B and C.
There are some widely distributed series of colour determinants in
mamals which are absent from cats or which are not certainly present. A Pink-eyed series P, different from the albino series, changes the coat
colour as well as that of the eye and is uncertain in cats. An Extension
series E either extends or diminishes the amount of eumelanin in the
coat, with an opposite effect upon the amount of yellow pigment.
Usually dominance and extension of dark pigment go together, causing
coats to be uniformly dark, as in black rats and black rabbits, whatever
the agouti genes present may be. There is ease of confusion between
members of the A and E series. Dominant black in the E series occurs in
mouse, rat, deer mouse, hamster, coypu, pig, dog, cattle, horse, sheep,
etc. and has been claimed to be present in cats. In mice it has been
shown that there are seven different genetical ways in which a black
coat colour may be produced, thus great care must be exercised in
interpreting insufficient data from breeding of cats and of other animals.
The Orange (sex-linked) gene 0. This gene gives orange (red or yellow)
coats in males 0 while in females it produces tortoiseshell when
heterozygous 0- and yellow-red when homozygous 00 (see Chapter 8). Tortoiseshell cats show a patchwork of orange, black and cream markings
and are usually only female. Tortoiseshell and White cats carry the genes
ss for white piebald spotting as well. These varieties occur in both Short
and Longhair.
Some of the genetical distinctions between certain varieties of domestic
cats have been noted on previous pages, but never the full genetical
make up of these varieties, which indeed is unknown. The following list
brings together the distinguishing genetical combina-
133
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
tions possessed by varieties of domestic cats in so far as they have
been elucidated. The capital letters denote dominant genes, and their homo- or
heterozygous (see p. 22) states are written as for White cats WW and W-
, either of which gives the visible character. The lower case letters, such
as aa Non-Agouti, 11 Longhair, dd Dilute colour (Blue), bb Brown, c eh c
eh Chinchilla, && Siamese colour pattern, cB cB Burmese, etc. denote
recessive genes which only cause visible effects when homozygous, the
heterozygous state being written as 1- etc. The dominant agouti genes AA or A- are usually not written down in order to simplify the notation,
but they are present unless the recessive aa is entered. Similarly the
dominant Shorthair genes LL or L are not written down but are present in
varieties not bearing the recessive 11. The hyphen indicates a
heterozygous state, W- or cCH-, of either a dominant or of a recessive
gene when one chromosome of a pair alone carries the gene. A cat
invisibly carrying a heterozygous recessive gene is best described as a
carrier. Only the gene causing orange (red-yellow or tortoiseshell) is sex-
linked, and as explained in Chapter 8, the females are either 00 or 0- when
homo- and heterozygous respectively, but the male is always 0 because
there is no fellow for the X chromosome in the X Y pair of male sex
chromosomes.
SHORTHAIR
aa
aa dd
aabbdd
TT
tbtb
tbtbo
tbtboo
tbtbcchcch
TaTa
TaTaO
TaTaOO
Black
Blue
Brown
aabb Havana or Self-Chocolate
Chestnut Brown Longhair
Self-Lilac
Tabby Mackerel
Tabby Blotched
Tabby Red male
Tabby Red female
Tabby Silver
Abyssinian
Red Abyssinian male
Red Abyssinian female
134
LONGHAIR
aa 11
aaddll
aa bb 11
aabbddll
TTll
tbtbll
tbtb 0 11
tbtbooll
tBtBcCHcCHl
l
W_
WW
W_ CV
WWcSc
S
SIAMESE
aacScS
aa cScS dd
aacScSbb
aacScSbbdd
aa cScS 0
aacScSOO
aa cScS 0-
aac BcB
aaO- Tortoiseshell (females only)
ddO Cream male
ddOO Cream female
aaddO- Blue Cream (females only)
Red Self (similar to Red Tabby)
Chinchilla
Blue Chinchilla
Smoke
Blue Smoke
White, blue or orange-eyed
Foreign White
Seal-point
Blue-point
Chocolate-point
Lilac-point
Red-point male
Red-point female
Tortie-point (females only)
Burmese
APPENDIX
aa 0- 11
ddOll
ddOOll
aaddO-ll
c eh c eh 11
cCH-ll c eh
cCHddll cCH-
ddll aa
cCHcCH
aacCHcCHddl
l W_ 11 WWll
COLOURPOINT
aa cs& 11
aacScSddll
aacScSbbll
aacScSbbddll
aacScSO11
aacScSOOll
aacScSO-ll
Some of these colour varieties occur typically in both Long-and
Shorthair cats, such as the Blacks, Blues, Tabbies, Blue-Creams, Creams,
Tortoiseshells, Whites, etc. But others are restricted to coat lengths. No
Longhair Abyssinian or Shorthair Chinchilla or Smoke exist. The Dominant White gene W gives the typical Longhair and Shorthair
Whites with the type characteristics of these groups, see pp. 15, 16, 31.
But this gene in combination with Siamese creates white cats with blue
eyes and the type characteristics of this variety, in contrast to the
typical Shorthairs and Longhairs. These cats in Britain are called 'Foreign Whites' because the Siamese type is termed 'Foreign', see p. 16.
135
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND HIMALAYAN CATS
The Colourpoints or Himalayans are not simply a longhaired variety of
Siamese as the genotype entered above suggests. Their Persian or
Longhair type is controlled by most important modifying genes which
determine the features of shape in which they resemble the typical
Longhairs. The American Balinese variety is a long haired cat with both colour
pattern and shape of the Siamese but quite different in its modifying
genes from the Colourpoint. The Birman is another variety carrying the Siamese genes, and here
the type structure is intermediate between those of Siamese and of
Longhairs, and in addition the genes for white feet are present. White
feet can be obtained in all domestic varieties, but selection has
eliminated them from exhibition strains of domestic cats. The difference between the Shorthair 'British Blue' with its round
head and massive structure and the 'Russian Blue' (not geographically
associated with Russia), with a differently shaped head and body and
different coat texture, is again due to unanalyzed modifying genes.
These varieties are quite distinct and are maintained so by selective
breeding within each variety. The Tortoiseshell and White varieties in both Long and Shorthair carry,
in addition to the genes noted in the Table for Tortoiseshell, those for
white spotting as well, ss. The genetics of the Manx, Bu-, tail-less cats are not wen apprehended.
This structural feature occurs in many colour varieties of Shorthairs and
sometimes in Longhairs. But the Manx features, in contrast to all those
considered above, are not clear cut, and all grades from normal tails to
tail-less kittens can be found in the same litter. The Red Tabby and Red Self cats are similar in their major recognizable
genes, and it is probable that the latter variety has arisen by selection
from the former, many modifying genes being involved. The Red Self
often lacks Agouti. 'Among the Longhairs, the genes producing the Chinchilla hair
characteristic are present in three varieties, the Silver Tabby, the Chinchilla and the Smoke. Much remains to be learned about the genetics
of these and of other varieties of cats. Although the several varieties of domestic cats listed above are
probably characterized by the genes noted, it is clear that very many
136
APPENDIX
other genes referred to under the title of 'modifying genes' are at work in
creating each variety in its entirety, that is conformation of body and
texture and colour pattern of the coat. Fuller information will be found in
Searle's Comparative Genetics of Coat Colour in Mammals (1968)1 and in
making the above summary this work has been freely used as being the
most modern survey of the data. See also the earlier review by Robinson
(footnote p. 34).
'Searle, A. G., 1968, Comparative Genetics of Coat Colour in Mammals, Logos Academic Press.
137
Index
139
Abyssinian, 16, 133 Briarry Euan (Ch.), 35
Adexolin, 95 Briarry Far Neerah, 44
adolescent, 43 Briarry Jehane, 36, 43
agouti, 16, 131 Briarry Macsuch (Ch.), 65
albino, 131 Briarry Madre Decacaid, 66
Allbran, 95, 97 Briarry Roxana, 56, 78, 111,
allelomorphic pair, 24, 130 Photograph, 38
Angora, 15, 129 Briarry Swashbuckler, 43, 65
Briarry Tromo, 41, 64
Balinese, 15, 44, 136 Briarry Uglia, 44
behaviour, 75, 84 Briarry Ugly, 44
benzalkonium chloride, 101 Briarry Zorab (Ch.), 79
Bicolour, 15, 16, 82 "British" cats, 15, 16
Birman, 15, 17, 44, 48, 68, 81, 136 Brown, see Self Chocolate Longhair
birth, 108 brown series, 131
Black, 15, 16, 52, 55, 131, Bubastis Georgina, 55
Photographs, 15, 16, 20 Burmese, 16, 131
Black and White, 67, 81
Blue, 14, 15, 16, 52, 55, 132, 135, cage, 77
Photograph, 14 calling, 106
Blue-Cream, 15, 16, 73, 135 Cats Magazine, 36, 51, 53
Blue-point, 17, 55, 56, 135, Cestarsol, 98
Colour photographs 111, VII, Chestnut brown, 16, 17, 131, 134
Photographs, 7, 8, 9, 11, 19, 22, Chinchilla, 15, 55, 131
23, 32, 37, 38 Chocolate, see Self Chocolate
body, 31, 42, 46 Longhair
body colour, 44, 45, 76 Chocolate Point, 17, 42, 52, 57, 62,
bottle feeding, 94, 104, 120, 135
Photograph, 30 Chocolate-point (pseudo), 61
breeding, 20, 102 chromosomes, 19, 44, 69
breeding difficulties, 114 cleaning, 101
brewer's yeast, 92 coat, 15, 31, 42, 45, 98, 129
Briarry Bizbod, 43 coat colours, 129
Briarry Bruno, 65, 66 Collins, Miss, 55
Briarry Candytuft (Ch.), 84, Colourpoint, 13, 15, 17, 56, 135
Photograph, 2 Complan, 94, 119
Briarry Cattery, 14,43, 45, 53, 55, 62, Cream, 15, 16, 73, 135
67, 127 . Cream-point, 73
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND
Debutante of Dunesk, 65 dilute series,
132 dominant genes or characters, 22,
25, 50 Dominant White, 15,16,135
cars, 31, 37, 63, 99, 106
eggs, 19, 92, 94 Esbilac,
94 eye, 46 eye-colour, 39,
46
F.1., F.2., etc., 22, 48
feeding kittens, 118 feline
enteritis, 125 Felix, 95 fish,
92, 96 fleas, 98, 110, 124
food 92 "Foreign" Shorthair,
16 Foreign White, 16,135
Foxborrow Frivolous, 65
Fuller's Earth, 99 fur ball, 99
G.C.C.F., 15, 45, 52, 54 G-Hex, 98, 101
Gadeford Bagheera, 65 Gadeford Kelpie,
65 genes and genetical symbols, 19, 22,
34-44, 48, 55, 63, 66, 68, 69, 73,
81,129, 134 Goforth, Mrs., 14 grass, 90,
93
habits, 84 halibut liver oil, 95, 96 hares,
94 Havana, 17, 134 head, 15, 31, 37,
42, 46 heterozygous, 23, 25, 50, 56,
66, 71 homozygous, 20, 23, 25, 50, 56,
73 housing, 84, 88 hybrid, 48
140
HIMALAYAN CATS
inoculation, 125
iris, 39 Isogel, 95
Izal, 101
Johnson's Baby Powder, 3, 98
Kala Sabu, 55 kitten
weights, 113
kittening box, 107
Kitzyme, 92
Laurentide Brown Prestige, 65
lethal genes, 20 Leyhausen, Dr.
P., 78, 87 Lilac, see Self lilac
Longhair Lilac-point, 17, 42, 52,
62 Lilac-point (pseudo), 61
Lindane dust, 101 linkage, 19, 44,
70 litters, 103 Longhair, 13, 15,
22, 48, 134 Lop-eared cat, 51
M.O.F., 94, 119
Maltese dilution, 132, and see Blue
Manx, 16, 51, 136
Marinol (Benzalkonium chloride),
101 marks, 46
mating, 102,107
maturity, 103
meals, 92, 95
meat, 92 milk
mixes, 94
Mingchiu Bini,
Colour photograph XIV
Mingchiu Cattery, 14, 44, 53, 62, 78,
81,88,127
Mingchiu Chirk (Ch.), 58, 59, 67,
Colour photograph III
Mingchiu Choc (Ch.) 41, 59, 79, 84,
Photograph, 10
Mingchiu Chou-Lu (Ch.), 41, 42, 59,
67,79,84,
Photographs, 3, 13, 17, 18
Mingchiu Danladi, 66,102
Mingchiu Ghunti (Ch.), 37
Colour photograph VII,
Photograph, I I
Mingchiu Kamet (Ch.), 39, 79
Mingchiu Koca,
Colour photograph XV
Mingchiu Koffee, 66
Mingchiu Kohcoh, 66
Mingchiu Lilac, 66, 67,
Colour photograph XIII
Mingchiu Magog (Ch.), 34, 69,
Photograph, 20
Mingchiu Mandarin of Sahadi (Ch.),
Colour photograph VI
Mingchiu Meg, 45
Mingchiu Merle (Ch.), 41, 58, 59, 67
Mingchiu Mirabelle,
Photograph, 33
Mingchiu Monique (Ch.), 43, 45, 60,
85,
Photographs, 22, 37, 38
Mingchiu Moppette (Ch.), 102
Mingchiu Mudoba (Ch.), 38, 40, 42,
59,127,
Colour photographs 1, V, XI
Mingchiu Murdock of Badi (Gr. Ch.),
39, 53,
Photographs, 21a, b
Mingchiu Nootka of Pic's (Gr. Ch.),
Photograph, 8
Mingchiu Obel (Ch.), 37, 40,
Colour photograph IV
Mingchiu Pearlas of Harobed (Gr.
Ch.), 35, 39, 53
Mingchiu Polo (Ch.), 35, 36, 38, 67,
68,69
Photographs, 1, 24
Mingchiu Ptan (Ch.), 58, 60, 62,
Colour photograph IX
Mingchiu Romeo, 66
Mingchiu Roy, 37
Photograph, 7
Mingchiu Sebastian (Gr. Ch.), 39, 53
Mingchiu Shan (Ch.), 36, 38, 59, 84
INDEX
141
Mingchiu Snuff, 41, 66, 104
Mingchiu Souk of Badi (Ch.), 85
Mingchiu Sula, 63
Mingchiu Sula Three, 58, 63
Mingchiu Sulafour, 60, 63,
Colour photographs VIII, XII, XIV Mingchiu Tal of Harobed (Ch.), 53
Mingchiu Tinka (Ch.), 35,40
Colour photograph II Mingchiu Tiree, 42
Mingchiu Trivia, 64, 104
Photograph, 31
Mingchiu Una, 58
Mingchiu Vanessa,
Colour photograph XV mites, 99 moult, 43
mutation, 51, 68
naming, 43 neuters, 96 nipples, 112 non-
agouti, 131 noses, 15, 31, 37, 41, 42,
46, 63, 106
offals, 92 orange gene,
70, 133 Otodex, 99
pads colour, 46 painleucopenia,
125 paraffin, 97, 98, 119
Persian, 13, 15, 36, 48
personality, see temperament
pills, 100 pregnancy, 107 pure
line, 31, 49 purity (genetical),
49 Quick Quaker Oats, 94
rabbits, 94, 129 recessive genes or
characters, 22, 25,
50 Red deer,
129
COLOURPOINT LONGHAIR AND
Red-point, 69, 133, 135
Red Self, 15, 135
Rex, 16,129
rhinotracheitis, 96
Russian Blue, 16
Scolaban, 98 Scotts Midlothian Oat Food
(M.O.F.), 96, 110 scratching post, 86
Seal-point, 17, 55, 56 Seanip, 92, 95
Searle, Dr. A. G., 68, 137 segregation, 19-
30, 51 Self-Chocolate Longhair, 14, 52,
66, 131,134 Self-Lilac Longhair, 14, 52,
132,134 sex chromosomes, 70 sex
linkage, 70 sexing kittens, 113 Shorthair,
16, 22, 134 Siamese, 14, 16, 17, 25, 36,
41, 45, 48, 49, 68, 82, 132, 134 Silver,
15, 16, 132 Smoke, 15, 132,135 sperms,
19, 22 Spotted, 16 Standard, for Birmans,
83 Standard, for Colourpoints, 45
142
HIMALAYAN CATS
Stirling-Webb, Mr. B. A., 14, 35, 36, 67,
76, 81, 128 supplementary feeding,
110, 112,120
Tabby, Blotched, 134 Tabby, Brown, 15,
16, 70, 132, 134 Tabby, Mackerel, 134
Tabby, Red, 15, 16, 69, 70, 132, 134
Tabby, Silver, 15, 16, 132, 134 tail, 15,
16, 31, 42, 46 teeth, 96 temperament,
75 temperature, Ill, 112, 119 ticked hair,
16, 55, 131 Tortie-point, 69, 133, 135
Tortoiseshell, 15, 16, 70, 133, 135
Tortoiseshell and White, 15, 16, 133
Turkish, 15 type, 31, 42, 44, 46, 106
vaccine, 66 vitamins,
92, 96, 116
Webb, see Stirling-Webb
weight, 113 White, 15, 16,
135 White-footed, 68, 81
Woods Amber, 35 worms,
98, 110, 123
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
Head office: 40 Museum Street, London, W.C.1 Telephone: JI-405 8577
Sales, Distribution and Accounts Departments Park Lane, Hemel Hempstead, Herts. Telephone: 0442 3244
Athens: 7 Stadiou Street, Athens 125 Auckland: P.O. Box 36013, Northcote, Auckland 9 Barbados: P.O. Box 222, Bridgetown Beirut: Deeb Building, Jeanne d' Arc Street Bombay: 10315 Fort Street, Bombay I Calcutta: 285J Bepin Behari Ganguli Street, Calcutta 12 Dacca: Alico Building, 18 Motijheel, Dacca 2 Delhi: 1118D Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi I Hong Kong: 105 Wing on Mansion, 26 Hankow Road, Kowloon lbadan: P.O. Box 62 Johannesburg: P.O. Box 23134, Joubert Park, Johannesburg Karachi: Karachi Chambers, McLeod Road Lahore: 22 Falettis' Hotel, Egerton Road Madras: 2118 Mount Road, Madras 6 Manila: P.O. Box 157, Quezon City D-502 Mexico: Libreria Britanica, SA., Separio Revelon 125, Mexico 4, D.F. Nairobi: P.O. Box 30583 Ontario: 2330 Midland Avenue, Agincourt Rio de Janeiro: Caixa Postal 2537-Zc-00 Singapore: 36c Prinsep Street, Singapore 7 Sydney: N.S. W.: Bradbury House, 55 York Street Tokyo: C.P.O. Box 1728, Tokyo 100-91
SIGNALS IN THE ANIMAL WORLD
DIETRICH BURKHARDT, WOLFGANG SCHLEIDT, HELMUT ALTNER
Translated from the German by Kenneth Morgan
Signals in the Animal World is a new type of book, surveying the results and
insight gained by research into behaviour, a science which is still young but
which is rapidly becoming of great importance for many fields of study. The
fascinating techniques of modern physical and chemical research in biology and
the still largely unknown procedures used in the study of behaviour have yielded
a wealth of new knowledge about many aspects of the animal world.
Signals in the Animal World describes these discoveries. It begins with the
functioning of nerves, cells and bodily organs, goes on to consider the behaviour
of individual living creatures and finally describes the organization of life in
animal communities. The text is illustrated by a mass of photographic material,
much of it coloured, showing both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of animals and
their organs and revealing much which the eye alone can never see.
Many of the examples quoted show that living nature is ahead of man in the
solution of important technical problems and that many of our latest 'inventions'
were anticipated by nature millions of years ago, in the course of evolution.
Although the book is written by specialists, it is simple to understand and
clearly arranged. Much of the information has not previously been available to a
wider public. It will appeal to all types of reader. Medical students will find just
as many stimulating ideas as engineers concerned with the development of
electronics. Non-biologists and laymen interested in living nature will be just as
interested as students of zoology, botany and physics and doctors and teachers.
But the biology specialist will also be glad to possess this book, in which such a
mass of new and varied information has been gathered into one volume.
'refreshing and informative ... The presentation is excellent, and the numerous
illustrations are outstanding ... This is a useful book, and all those concerned are
to be congratulated for their modem approach.' Nature
'It is a pleasure to read always, a valuable work of reference and superbly
illustrated.' Country-Side
LONDON - GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
Colourpoint Longhair & Himalayan Cats S. M. MANTON GEORGE
For owners and breeders, a book which gives precise and
full information concerning inheritance and breeding
procedures for colour and type, superbly illustrated by
45 photographs in black and white and 15 in colour of
well-known Colourpoints and their ancestors. Questions
of the day concerning the status of these cats are
discussed. Most of the information on inheritance and
all the sections on general management and care will be
equally useful to breeders and owners of other varieties
of cat. Technical matters are presented in a simple
manner which is readily understandable by all. For the cat-lover pure and simple, a delightful book
about a sumptuous and novel variety: Persian or
Longhair cats- with the Siamese colour pattern - seal,
chocolate, blue, lilac, tortie and red, etc. For students of biology a practical example of the
application of scientific knowledge to the breeding of a
domestic animal, very familiar in many of its varieties,
arguably more attractive than Mendel's peas and beans,
and yet equally apt to illustrate the principles of
genetics. New varieties both man-made and naturally
occurring, and real genetical mutation, are here recorded
in a fascinating history of a scientific breeding project. The book is written by a professional zoologist (Mrs.
Harding in private life) whose Mingchiu Colourpoints,
bred in Richmond, Surrey, England, have left their mark
upon the show benches of the world. The unique series
of photographs by Dr. J. P. Harding show some of the
most famous of the Mingchiu champions and their
evolution through 21 years of planned breeding. Colourpoint Longhair
and
Himalayan Cats
Colourpoint Longhair and
Himalayan Cats
GENETICS, BREEDING AND CARE OF
THESE AND OTHER PEDIGREE CATS
S. M. MANTON (Mrs J. P. Harding)
F.R.S.
London
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET
© Copyright Arpacats
Persian Himalayans
1999-2010
|
|
|
