Can any correspondents of "N. & Q." who may have paid particular
attention to natural history, throw any light or grounds for explaining
the fact of there, I may almost say, never being instances of a _male
tortoiseshell cat_? for though I have been very lately told that such a
one was exhibited in the great display in Hyde Park, yet as I did not
witness it myself, I can only use it as the exception which proves the
general rule.
Having for the last fifty years been in the constant habit of keeping
cats, and having frequently during that time possessed many of a rare
and foreign breed, some of which were tortoise-shells of the most
beautiful varieties, I have always endeavoured, by mixing the breeds in
every way, to procure a male of this peculiar colour; but with the vast
number of kittens that during this long period have fallen under my
observation, I have invariably found that if there was the slightest
appearance of a single _black hair_ on one, otherwise _white and
orange_, so sure would it prove a female; and thus _vice versâ_, an
orange hair appearing on a black and white skin, even in the smallest
degree, would immediately proclaim the sex.
I have asked for an elucidation of this curious fact from two of our
greatest naturalists of the present day, but without any success; I have
racked my own brain even for some plausible mode of accounting for it,
but in vain; for it should be observed that this peculiarity or line of
demarcation as to sexes does not obtain with other animals, for I have
seen what may be called tortoiseshell horses and cows, that is, with the
same admixture of colours, and yet they have been indiscriminately of
both sexes.
Now it is true we hear occasionally of a _tortoiseshell tom cat_
advertised as having been seen or heard of, but in all these instances a
solution of the _nitrate of silver_ has been _freely used to aid the
imposition_, and with all the pains I have taken, I have never been
fortunate enough to meet with a _bonâ fide_ ocular demonstration.
Should any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." have it in their power to
throw light on this curious fact in natural history, it will much
gratify me, even if it should prove that I am making much about nothing.