When most people say “Cat,” they are thinking of the small, domestic cat. But the cat family is really quite an amazing one, and includes leopards, lions, tigers, and jaguars!

All cats, large or small, have the same general proportions of body, and the same food habits. All cats are meat eaters and kill their own food. Depending on the size of the cat, this food ranges from small mice and birds up to large zebras, deer, antelope, and cattle.

A cat has soft cushioned toes on which it moves very silently. It also has five sharp pointed claws on each of its front feet and four on each of its hindfeet. The sounds made by cats are mewing, purring, howling, and screaming. Some of the large cats, such as the lion and tiger, often roar. By the way, because of the formation of certain bones in the throat, none of these four cats, the lion, tiger, leopard or jaguar, are able to purr.

Cats have been around in the world since the beginning of tune. Fossils of cats have been found which are millions of years old! But the domestication of the cat took place only a short time ago in terms of the history of man.

It is now believed that cats have been domesticated for about 4,500 or perhaps 5,000 years. Probably one of the small wildcats of Europe, North Africa, or Asia was the original ancestor of the domestic cat.

We know that the Egyptians had tame cats 4,000 years ago, and they worshiped the cat as a god. Their goddess Bast, or Pacht, was shown in pictures with a cat’s head, and sacrifices were offered to cats. The cat also represented their chief god and goddess, Ra and Isis.

In Egypt, when a house cat died, the family and servants shaved their eyebrows and went into mourning. The death of a temple cat was mourned by the whole city. Many mummies of cats have been found, prepared in the same way as the mummies of kings and nobles. The penalty for killing a cat was death!

The tame cat appeared in Europe about the year A.D. 1000, and it was usually believed to be an evil spirit rather than a god!