FELIS - LOST CONSTELLATION OF THE CAT

Felis, as depicted in Alexander Jamieson's 1822 star atlas

Today, only 88 constellations in the night sky are formally recognised by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), but many additional ones were once described and named too. One of these was Felis, the Cat, which was originally designated in 1799 by French astronomer Joseph Jérôme de Lalande, a noted cat-lover who had lamented the domestic cat's absence in a sky populated by no less than three different domestic dog constellations (Canis Major, Canis Minor, and Canes Venatici), as well as three wild cats (Leo, Leo Minor, and Lynx). And so Felis, situated between the constellations of Antlia (the Air Pump) and Hydra (the Water Snake), was duly added to the list, becoming the thirty-fourth animal constellation (albeit a rather small one).

Accordingly, in 1801 it was portrayed in German astronomer Johann Elert Bode's magnificent atlas of the heavens, Uranographia Sive Astrorum Descriptio (the largest star atlas ever published, containing the positions of over 17,000 stars), as well as in a map of 1805 prepared once again by Bode.

Felis, as depicted in Bode's Uranographia (1801)

It also appeared in an equally spectacular star atlas by Alexander Jamieson, entitled Celestial Atlas Comprising a Sistematic [sic] Display of the Heavens, which was published in 1822.

In later years, however, just like numerous other once-recognised constellations, Felis lost its place in the night sky. After having been deemed by French astronomer Nicolas Camille Flammarion to be superfluous, it was not included in the final list of 88 constellations drawn up and officially approved by the IAU in 1922. And that is why – just like other 'extinct' constellations such as Rangifer the Reindeer, Bufo the Toad, Cerberus the Three-Headed Hound of Hades, Hippocampus the Sea Horse, Noctua the Owl, Limax the Slug, Apis the Bee, Dentalium the Tooth Shell, Gallus the Rooster, Anguilla the Eel, and (truly!) Manis the Pangolin, to name but a few - Felis the Cat no longer gazes down upon us from the Heavens far above.

Manis - the Pangolin constellation - as designated and depicted in 1754 by John Hill within his Urania: A Compleat View of the Heavens; Containing the Ancient and Modern Astronomy, in Form of a Dictionary

This blog post is extracted from my forthcoming book, Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery: A Feline Phantasmagoria.

VAMPIRE CATS AND DEVIL CATS - FELINE FIENDS FOR HALLOWE'EN!

With my very own - but totally unfiendish! - Hallowe'en cat (Dr Karl Shuker)


In Asia, belief in vampire cats is still very much apparent. One of the most feared examples is the Bengalese chordewa, the bane of a hill-frequenting tribe known as the Oraons. According to their traditional lore, the chordewa is a witch whose soul can temporarily leave her body and assume the guise of a black-furred vampire cat. While in this form, it seeks out victims among the tribe's sick and dying, and lays claim to them by licking their lips or consuming their food. The chordewa's power will be assuaged, however, if her feline-shaped soul can be captured, thereby preventing it from re-entering her body, which sinks into a coma and remains in this state until (if ever) her soul returns to it.

Even more deceptive but equally deadly is the Japanese vampire cat. This feline demon can assume the form of a beautiful maiden to seduce an unsuspecting man and drain him of his life, imperceptibly but inexorably, night after night - until he eventually becomes an inanimate husk. Happily, this dire spirit-beast can be recognised when spied in its true state, for a vampire cat cannot disguise the fact that it possesses not one tail but two.

Japanese vampire cat

One famous Japanese legend tells of how the Prince of Hizen's favourite concubine, the lady O Toyo, was secretly strangled by a vampire cat who then assumed her form, and took her place at the unsuspecting prince's side. In the weeks that followed this surreptitious substitution, however, his friends and courtiers became alarmed to see that the prince was becoming ever paler and and weaker, especially at night, as if his very life-force was somehow being drained away. But how - and by whom?

Finally, one of the prince's most loyal soldiers kept watch over his master's bed chamber, and spied the false O Toyo approach the sleeping man - ready to change back into a vampire cat and imbibe his blood, as it had been doing each night since it had killed the real O Toyo. Sensing the soldier's presence, however, this feline female paused, but the soldier had accurately guessed her evil intent and leapt forward to slay her. Instantly, the false O Toyo became a vampire cat again, and fled away into the mountains. Some say that it was later killed there, but others believe that it survived, and will one day have its revenge. There have even been claimed sightings of this vampire cat; the most recent was in 1929.

Rather less easy to espy is the Indian devil cat, which can haunt homes like a feline poltergeist, for this creature is normally invisible. However, its presence can be readily detected, due to its spine-chilling shrieks, likened to a bloodcurdling fusion of a cat's yowling cry with the ear-splitting scream of a peacock! One or more of these evil entities will sometimes invade a house, much to the consternation and despair of its inhabitants, or will take up residence on its roof and regale the people below with hideous eldritch screeching. Fortunately, if a house troubled by a devil cat is sprinkled with holy water and blessed by a priest, its shrill sounds will be heard there no more.

This post is excerpted from my forthcoming book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery

AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT - FELINE SYMBOLISM, DREAMLORE, AND FOLK-BELIEFS.

Kittens (William M. Rebsamen)

As my previous blog, surveying dog symbolism in dreams, attracted so much interest, here's a feline counterpart, examining cat symbolism, and not just in dreams this time.

The feline image - sleek, silent, shadow-like, the embodiment of sphinx-like inscrutability - is unquestionably one of the most potent, diverse, and mystical of all animal symbols. There have been dark periods during its long affiliation with humanity, as in Europe during the Middle Ages, when the cat was denounced as a creature of evil, in league with witches and demons. Equally, however, as will be seen here, it has also inspired many much more positive, benevolent associations - everything from moon guardian to marriage blesser.

LUNAR GODDESSES AND OTHER EXAMPLES OF FELINE FEMININITY

The cat's lunar links date back at least as far as the ancient Egyptians, who likened the changing dilation and contraction of the pupils in its glowing eyes to the waxing and waning of the pallid moon, and its nocturnal activity to the moon's night-time visitations. Indeed, according to Egyptian mythology, the cat owes its eyes' shimmering phosphorescence to the sun-god Ra, who entrusted to it the sun's brilliant lustre, to be guarded and diligently transported by it throughout the night - so that our planet would never be entirely without light, and as a promise that the sun would itself return every morning.

As an emblem of the moon, which is traditionally portrayed in many mythologies worldwide as feminine in comparison with the masculine sun, it was inevitable that the cat too would become a symbol of femininity and associated with a number of important female deities. Most familiar of these is Bast, Egypt's golden-eyed cat-headed goddess of the moon (again) and fertility, via whom the cat has also become linked symbolically to childbirth.

Indeed, 'Ru', which is the Egyptian hieroglyph representing birth, was based upon the shape of a cat's eye, and when placed upon the Tau cross, representing time, yielded the famous ankh - symbol of life and immortality. This later became synonymous with Venus, the Roman goddess of love, thereby reinforcing the cat's link with femininity and fertility.

Similarly, Venus's Norse counterpart, the goddess Freya, not only symbolising love and passion but also ruling the dark, mysterious kingdom of the night, rode through the sky in a chariot drawn by a team of cats (originally lynxes). And in Hindu mythology, Shasti, goddess of childbirth, is borne aloft not upon a horse or elephant, but upon a cat instead.

CAT NAPPING

The cat's nocturnal lifestyle readily lends itself to deep, metaphysical feline symbolism. As revealed in Tom Chetwynd's Dictionary of Sacred Myth (1986), because the cat can see in the dark and is thus active at night, it has become a symbol of intuition, capable of navigating through the shadowy realm of the unconscious and seeing into the darkness of the future.

Notwithstanding this, the cat has failed to receive a very good press from those who specialise in dream divining. To dream about a cat is traditionally claimed to denote bad luck, unless you can chase it away before waking, whereupon you will successfully overcome sizeable obstacles and acquire great fame and fortune. Similarly, to dream of hearing a cat mewing or screaming is supposed to indicate that you have a false friend who will utilise lies and misleading words to create problems for you. As before, these odd ideas have no doubt been inspired by the cat's secretive, enigmatic nature and liking for night-time prowling.

DOUBLE IMAGES

In addition to the cat's personification of intuition, its lunar associations are not lost upon Chetwynd either. He notes that cats can be white or black, "...like the full and dark moon and so depict the extreme opposites of life and death, nourishing milk and dark poison. But they also come striped and so are the pattern of the transformations of the moon which governs the alternating rhythm of the tides, and so the whole great movement of life".

The cat's symbolic ambivalence is very apparent within Eastern cultures. For instance, both in China and Japan the cat was traditionally looked upon as a cunning shape-shifter, capable of transforming itself into many different guises. In China, however, it reputedly underwent these transformations for evil purposes, and was a symbol of yin (thereby allied yet again with femininity), whereas in Japan its transformations were beneficial. Moreover, Japanese sailors actively welcomed cats on account of their supposed ability to ward off dangerous maritime demons. Similarly, whereas in Zoroastrianism the cat serves the evil deity Ahriman, in Islam it is cherished by Muslims because it was blessed by Mohammed.

Perhaps the most familiar example of contrasting double images in the West concerns black cats and white cats. Once the superstition-ridden age linking cats and witchcraft had vanished in Britain, the black cat became associated with good luck, especially if one of these sable-coated felids should cross your path - whereupon you should make a wish and hope for it to come true. White cats, conversely, were looked upon as weird, unearthly creatures.

Yet in the U.S.A., as well as in certain continental European countries, such as Spain and Belgium, the reverse situation has prevailed. Here, a black cat still symbolises darkness and is viewed somewhat uncomfortably by the more superstitious-minded, whereas a white cat symbolises light and is welcomed as a sign of impending good fortune - so too are grey cats. Just to be different, in Russia lucky cats are neither black nor white, but blue. And in East Yorkshire, although it is lucky to own a black cat, it is unlucky to meet one.

SNEEZING, SAILORS, AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS OF THE FELINE KIND

The cat features extensively in superstition and folk-beliefs. For instance, if a cat should sneeze once, good luck will visit its owners - or the weather will become rainy! If it should sneeze three times, however, its owners will all develop colds (rather like the cat, one would imagine, if it has sneezed three times in succession!). And if it should sneeze near a bride on the morning of her wedding, her marriage will be a happy one.

To say the word 'cat' outloud down in a mine or on board a ship is not recommended, at least according to early superstitions, but the presence of a cat on a ship is said to bring good luck, and the ship's cat is often among the first individuals to be rescued by the crew in the event of a shipwreck. It bodes particularly well for a ship's good fortune if a cat should come aboard uninvited and decide to stay - woe betide anyone foolish enough to try to chase it off! And any sailor's wife living on the Yorkshire coast who kept a pet cat at home would feel reassured that her husband would always return safely home from the sea.

Last but not least: the reason why cats are said to have nine lives is that in ancient times, the number nine was deemed to be exceptionally lucky, because it was three times three, or a trinity of trinities. And of all animals, what could be more suited to being blessed by the gift of nine lives than that not only very tenacious but also famously lucky species, the cat?

SCHREBER'S CAT OF MANY COLOURS.

Serval (Dr Karl Shuker)

In zoological parlance, a morph is defined as one of two or more physically (but not taxonomically) different forms of individual exhibited by a given species. For example, the black panther is a melanistic morph of the leopard Panthera pardus. Having said that, some morphs of certain feline species appear so different from one another on first sight that in days gone by they were rigorously classified as wholly distinct species in their own right.

SERVAL AND SERVALINE - OR, SPOTS VERSUS SPECKLES

The serval and the servaline are a case in point. Formally christened Leptailurus [=Felis] serval in 1776 by Carl Schreber, the serval is a distinctive species of medium-sized African wild cat with noticeably big ears, long limbs, and a tawny-yellow coat handsomely marked with large black blotches and polka dots. Native to much of tropical Africa except for the closed rainforests of Central and West Africa, it is most commonly encountered in open country, particularly dry savannahs and steppe.

In 1839, however, English zoologist W. Ogilby documented what he considered to be a second, totally discrete species of serval, native to the moist savannah zone encircling the jungles of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and elsewhere in western Africa. He named it Felis servalina, and it thus became known as the servaline and also, very appropriately, as the small-spotted serval. Eschewing the serval's large blotches and polka dots, the servaline's coat was flecked with a dusting of only the finest, tiniest dots, so that when viewed from any distance the animal seemed to be almost uniform in colour, without any evident patterning.

In later years, the servaline's taxonomic status became a perennial topic for dispute within scientific circles. Some figures, such as Professors Bocage and St George Mivart, and Richard Lydekker (all respected zoological authorities in the 1800s), as well as the eminent 20th Century United States mammalogist Dr J.A. Allen, were convinced of its separate standing. According to Allen, a series of serval and servaline pelts collected in what is now the Democratic Congo and housed at the American Museum of Natural History could be readily sorted into two discrete types - large-spotted (servals) and small-flecked (servalines) - with no intermediates.

There were other experts, conversely, such as Drs D.G. Elliot and Philip L. Sclater (a onetime Secretary of the Zoological Society of London), who adamantly refused to accept the servaline as a legitimate species - and were ultimately vindicated for their scepticism.

In 1915, a tribesman from Sierra Leone brought to attention two kittens, one a serval and the other a servaline, that he claimed were from the same litter - but as his claim was not substantiated by independent testimony, Allen would not accept it as scientific evidence. Some years later, however, Colonel C.R.S. Pitman, a Ugandan game warden with a longstanding interest in mysterious, controversial African animals, examined a sizeable collection of serval and servaline pelts while conducting a faunal survey in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), and was startled to find that they could be arranged in a sequence that produced a continuous intergradation of coat patterns conclusively linking the serval and servaline to one another.

In other words, the 'serval' and the 'servaline' were nothing more than names for the opposite ends of a spectrum of coat patterns exhibited by a single species. Pitman duly sent a selection of these significant pelts to London's Natural History Museum, and the servaline accordingly vanished from the list of feline species accepted by modern-day science. Intriguingly, exotic jet-black servals are often sighted in mountainous localities, including the Aberdares in Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro - truly a cat of many colours!

WHEN GOLD TURNS TO SILVER - LITERALLY!

With handsome golden-brown fur, the African golden cat Profelis [=Felis] aurata, seen here, was one of two closely related but ostensibly separate species of cat named from this continent in 1827 by Dutch zoologist Professor C.J. Temminck. The second was the silver cat F. celidogaster (also known as the grey cat).

Both were initially known only from western Africa, but specimens were later encountered in eastern Africa too. To make matters even more complex, western specimens of both species were often heavily marked with spots (earning them, somewhat incongruously, the alternative name of tiger cat), whereas eastern specimens of both species were generally plain.

As with the serval and servaline, zoological opinion during the 19th Century concerning whether or not the golden cat and silver cat were taxonomically distinct from one another was split - until the truth was finally exposed in a singularly memorable manner at London Zoo. In June 1906, a golden cat arrived at the zoo sporting its species' typical foxy-rufous coat colour - only to moult its fur during the next four months and replace it with the steely-coloured pelt characterising the silver cat! Thus ended the taxonomic tribulations surrounding another dimorphic denizen of the Dark Continent.

FOOLED BY FONTAINIER'S CAT?

Not to be outdone, however, for a long time the African golden cat's Asian relative, nowadays known as Temminck's golden cat Felis [=Catopuma] temminckii, posed an even trickier dilemma for science. The intricate coat markings of one of its subspecies, a large Burmese and Tibetan version known as Fontainier's cat F. t. tristis, are deceptively similar to those of a totally separate species, the leopard cat Felis [=Prionailurus] bengalensis - so much so that some zoologists were once in favour of classifying Fontainier's cat as a leopard cat subspecies instead!

And in South America, the red morph of the grey-furred jaguarundi Felis [=Puma] yagouaroundi was initially deemed to be a valid species, termed the eyra F. eyra.

Never judge a book by its cover - or a cat by its coat, it would seem!