Abstract
REFERRING to the note in your issue of December 13 (p. 164), by Mr. Lawson Tait, on “Deafness in White Cats,” I should like to state, if my remarks may not be out of date, that my father kept a breed of deaf white cats over several years; and on making an inquiry regarding these cats of my brother, who now lives in Reading, but who at that time was resident with my father on a farm in North Hampshire, he informs me that the deaf cats were all white with blue eyes, with one single exception, and that one refers to an aged mother who was named “Deaf,” on account of her infirmity, and who had eyes of different colours, the one being “red,” or pink, as seen in white rabbits, and the other blue. So remarkable was the appearance of this cat that the eyes often attracted the attention of visitors, and my brother has more than once related to me a circumstance which I should not mention here, save that it so thoroughly bears on this question as one of fact. On one occasion a neighbour, remarking on the ocular peculiarities of this cat, elicited from my father the jocular reply that “she had one eye for the rats, and another for the mice.” My brother further states that these deaf cats were all females, and that the breed was preserved on account of its furnishing “good mousers.” I apprehend that this characteristic may in some measure be attributed to the character of the eyes enabling the animals to see better in obscure light. Males were not preserved, because they became rovers and destroyed the game. When any of the offspring were pied, or otherwise coloured, they were not deaf. Bearing on this, and evidently referable to my brother's early associations, he once observed, in his walks round Reading, a white cat with blue eyes sitting at a cottage door, and on inquiring he found that the animal was deaf; but he made no observation as to whether it was male or female.
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STEVENS, J. Deafness in White Cats. Nature 29, 237 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/029237b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/029237b0
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