Cat Breed

The first inventory of cat breeds was carried out by Swedish naturalist Linnaeus in the 18th century in his Systema Naturae, where he distinguishes four major feline breeds: the domestic cat (Catus domesticus), the Spanish cat (Catus hispanicus), the Chartreux Cat (Catus coeruleus), and the Angora cat (Catus angorensis). Buffon, a contemporary of Linnaeus, counts six breeds in Natural History: "the Wild Cat, the Domestic Cat which has black lips and paws, the Domestic Cat which has red lips, the Domestic Cat called Spanish Cat, the Domestic Cat known as Chartreux Cat, and the Domestic Cat from Angora." This classification would remain until the mid-19th century, when modern feline technique in England would modify this order. Charles Cornevin's Treatise on Special Zootechnics. Small farm mammals published in 1897 adds to the list a breed of Chinese cat with drooping ears, which must have resembled the Scottish Fold, but which has now disappeared, and two tailless breeds whose description corresponds to the current Japanese Bobtail and the Manx. The Spanish breed disappears in the early 20th century, and is attached to the domestic cat. But the Persian and Abyssinian breeds are added. The number of breeds then continues to increase to this day, as we moved from 8 breeds in 1900, 25 to 30 in 1989, to around a hundred today. Exhibitions and competitions played an important role in the development of breeds. The first feline exhibition was held in Winchester in England in 1598, for St Giles, however, the first modern feline exhibition was organized at the Crystal Palace in London in 1871 by Harrison Weir. More than 170 cats were gathered there, divided into the British Shorthair and Persian categories. This exhibition marks the beginning of the definition of breed standards. In France, the first exhibition was organized by the Cat Club in 1925. In the United States, it was the one at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1898 that made exhibitions popular, and caused them to spread to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, and Europe. Exhibitions were interrupted during World War II but gradually resumed, and eventually multiplied and became popular. These exhibitions are organized by federations, one of the oldest being the British GCCF founded in 1910 by the merger of the National Cat Club and the Cat Club. In the United States, it is the Cat Fancier Association, which was founded in 1899. In continental Europe, it is the international feline federation that is the most important, founded in 1949 at the initiative of the Cat Club of Paris, it brings together most of the countries of continental Europe.