Show j th those pittsburg P ritts it burg cold storage cats our ou readers re 1 r will il doubtless remember the remarkable stories that were printed in the newspapers last summer with regard to a new breed ot of thick furred cats cat evolved by the peculiarities of environment viron ment in the cold storage ge warehouses of pittsburg ra pa the truth about this wonderful breed has just been published in the american naturalist philadelphia june arid and as aa Is usual in such cases turns out to be far less remarkable than the original stories though interesting enough to deserve exact narration the naturalist says A story lias has been be en going the rounds of oja newspapers both west and east to th the effect that a new breed of cats has been been produced in the cold storage warehouses of pittsburg in some of the papers reference was made to a new species of rat lat with the bodies clothed with remarkably long thick fur with even the tails covered with a thick growth of h hair air the rats had adapted themselves to it a low temperature and the cats cata were the result of breeding from artificial selection in order to obtain a cat to prey on oil the new rat according to tire story after several failures it a brood of seven kittens the progeny rog e ny of a 0 mother possessing posse asing unusually thick fur was raised in the rooms of the storage company and developed celop ed into sturdy thick furred cats with shortened tails and feelers five or six inches tn in le length gab this latter character was s aid to be probably due to their environment since they must feces necessarily live in darkness another pecullar peculiarity ity of the new cat Is its inability to live in 1 n an ordinary temperature when removed from the warehouse to the open air especially in summer birne e tt it will die of convulsions in a few hours this story was reprinted in england in some excellent scientific journals which showed a great lack of caution in appropriating ai anything supposed to bo be new in science from a newspaper it illustrates once more the english tendency to 16 neglect the good and discover c the bad in american affairs mrs alice dodington bodington however redeemed the reputation of her countrymen by writing to the secretary of the cold storage company to ascertain the facts in the case she received the fol following loving reply while there Is some foundation for the newspaper article it Is somewhat is exaggerated our cold storage house is separated into rooms of various sizes varying from 10 degrees to 40 degrees above zero about it a year ago we discovered mice in one of the rooms of the cold storage house we removed one of the cats from the general warehouse to the room referred to in the cold storage house while there she had a litter of several kittens four of these were transferred into one of the general warehouses leaving three in the cold storage house after the kittens were old id to take care of themselves we put the old cat back into the house we had taken her from the change of climate or temperature seemed to affect her almost almos t immediately she got very weak and languid we ve placed her again in the cold storage room when she immediately revived while the feelers of the cats in the cold storage room are of the usual length the fur Is 13 thick and the cats are larger stronger and heal healthier than the cats in any of the other warehouses thus the only result ot of the change of environment was the usual one which ensues on the advent of winter in extra tropical latitudes generally it Is interesting as showing that the effect is really produced by the low temperature and is not a survival through natural selection of a chance variation as a certain school of evolutionists would have us believe |