Novices cannot understand the amount of harm that is done by injudicious crossing of colours in breeding cats. They deteriorate the value of the resulting kittens for generations, and it takes sometimes many generations of correct breeding to kill out a wrong cross in colour.

What is meant by incorrect crossing of colours is mating tabbies to whole-coloured cats and whites to coloured cats; perhaps the latter is the most difficult to eradicate.

It certainly is the greatest offense to the cat fancy to mate a tortoise-shell, brown tabby or an orange to a silver.

Breeders of silvers know how difficult it has been to obtain this beautiful variety without a cream tinge, although they have been kept pure for generations; imagine, then, how many years it would take to eradicate a brown tabby, orange or tortoise-shell cross.

Many seem to think if they mate a queen of any colour to a good silver male or a blue, that they will get kittens just like the sire, thus starting another colour without purchasing fresh stock. There they make a great mistake. Perhaps they may get one fairly good-coloured kitten, but the majority will be mixed, tortoise-shell silvers, brown tabbies spoiled by a grey tinge throughout, silvers all tinged over with cream; and should there be one good-coloured one in the litter, is it practically valueless as a breeding cat. This is also the case in trying to breed blues in such a way; the result is rustiness of colour, tabby markings, etc. All females from such crosses should be destroyed at once; the males, of course, would make pretty pets of small value.

Whites are easily spoiled by crossing with colours, colour in a white pedigree being the most difficult to kill out. Years ago, when blues were first bred, they were obtained by crossing blacks with whites. This did much to spoil the purity of the whites, but did not do much harm to the blues, as they seldom if ever threw white kittens. Sometimes a solid black would appear, and occasionally a blue in the litter would have a few white hairs under the chin or underneath the body between the hind legs an irregular patch of white hair would be found; but these blemishes were soon bred out. Whites were not so easily restored to purity. Blues were also crossed with brown tabbies, and the resulting blues were often crossed with whites, with the result that, many generations after, the whites would throw a black or brown tabby kitten; and now the only way fanciers can help the fancy is to destroy every coloured female bred from whites, and dispose of the males solely as pets.

I would advise all novices starting in the fancy to be sure they are buying cats which have been judiciously bred for generations, or what perhaps is still better, those which have proved good breeders of pure-coloured kittens.

Cats without a known record have in a few cases proved of great breeding value, but they take longer to make a name in the fancy, as they must be bred from, and show what they can produce before they will be accepted by breeders as valuable stock.

The correct crossing of the different colours will be found under colour headings.