A great deal of interest has been taken in England in the subject of blue cats in America, which are often called Maltese, and really among the rank and file of the public this is the name they go by. So celebrated had some strains become that off-coloured cats bred from these cats are sometimes called Maltese, and the idea seemed to have gained considerable ground that this was a separate breed ; but evidence of this fact is very much lacking in most parts, and in travelling over a good deal of the country and finding them thousands of miles apart, I must confess that I have never been able to trace the origin of these cats nor to find out any reason for their numbers.

I have been led to think that they are the same, or were the same, in the beginning as the blue Russian or Archangel cat, and that they were brought to this country many years ago, and that the name was given them by sailors or others. The tradition possibly has been handed down in the same way as the name of Angora has remained fastened to the long-hairs with the average public here, and will be many more years in dying, for the band of fanciers who know better is but a drop in the bucket in this great land. No doubt the name of Maltese moved with the cat to the west as families moved, for in the case of native-born Americans the migration west has been often gradual: thus some moved, we will say, as far as Ohio, their sons and daughters moved to Illinois, and the next generation went still further, and the much-prized Maltese cat drifted on with his name.

Probably a good many of the so-called Maltese are just blue specimens of the ordinary short-haired cat ; and, in fact, there has never been anyone of my acquaintance who had any ideas as to points or type ; but the colour was the feature to be looked at. We find Maltese cats of the short and cobby type besides the long and more extended species, but the latter predominate, and I am inclined to agree with some English judges that the fairly long cats with a cleaner cut head are the purer type of blue cat. On some, when judging, I find very good heads with clean-cut features, round, well-developed cheeks, with fairly long bodies, very even in colour. No doubt the preponderance of blue cats before the advent of the cat shows was largely owing to the selection of blue kittens in the litters, which left a great many blue sires to roam the streets by night and sire blue kittens.

In many cases I have found families who had never heard of cat shows that had strains of blue or Maltese cats, and took pride in keeping the strain as pure as possible. And one great factor is that the blues have always had the name of being excellent mousers, and were valued as such. Besides this supposed strong point in their composition, they have always had a reputation for great intelligence and of being good-tempered and reliable about the house with children and young folk.

Like the Plymouth Rock fowl, the Maltese cat has been one of the institutions of the American continent, and there seems to be. some ground for believing the original tradition connected with the name Maltese - that the Maltese cat came from the East and was treasured as something out of the common, and fell among friends. Some are light and some are dark, and some have the white spot on the chest, but on most there is not much evidence of tabby markings ; neither do you see this in the young kittens in the same way as the Russians are said to be at an early age. I have seen five and six pure light blue kittens in a litter, and the father and mother were both of the same colour.

In quite out-of-the-way places you will, upon going to judge the short-hairs, find some blues, and often with deep brown eyes ; and if I were to make a comparison between the average American blue and what I saw in England as Russians, I should say the American cats are mostly lighter in colour, and do not have quite so glossy coats. Perhaps if taken up and selected for a few generations, these features would come out more strongly.

One of the worst features of the popularity of the Maltese, from the point of view of the breeder of long-hairs, has been that the blue colour has been so common that when the blue Persian was introduced he was not, in this country, considered peculiar. Among the Maine cats, so called, the blue or Maltese colour was not at all uncommon, and plenty of this colour are to be found. Some people who bred them obtained their stock from Paris, and no doubt the Chartreuse blue of olden times had a good deal to do with many of these.

"ajax," blue-eyed white. Owned by Mr. W. J. Stevens. (Photo: Coleman, Westfield, Mass.)

The oldest blue cat I ever saw was one reared on a farm; he had always lived out of doors, more or less, and was the farm cat. His age was twenty-four years, and as he was born at the same time as the oldest son, who was also twenty-four years old, the evidence was pretty good that the age was correct.

It must not be supposed from this that blue cats are so numerous as to overshadow other colours in North America, for we have short-hairs in all the common colours, and lots of them ; but, still, the fact is pretty evident that short-haired blues have been a popular colour for a long time, and there are so many that everyone, whether cat fancier or not, is quite used to the colour. The native-born American, as a rule, calls this cat the Maltese, and the name, as I said before, will cling for many a day to come. In judging these cats, I must say that the proportion of small or short, round-headed cats is small, and that these - in America, at least - are not the most common type of blue cat; and I, personally, in judging have usually inclined to the more lengthy cat with longer face and bigger ears, though I think it is possible to find plenty without absolutely mean-looking heads. We do not want a ferret's head on a cat, for there is a happy medium.