"Cat-Dog"

In Wilmington, N. C. last August, Mrs. Annie Mae Gannon's cat littered in her boarding house. First came one normal, one tailless and one bobtailed kitten. Twelve hours later Mrs. Gannon's cat bore what looked like a splotched, botched Boston bull pup. Colored black, yellow and white, it had long, sharply pointed ears, short whiskers, stub tail, short doggish hair. Unlike cat or dog it was born with eyes open. And it could crawl at once. As it grew up it made noises like a cat, sniffed and gnawed bones like a dog. It rested with its paws stretched forward dog fashion, refused to frolic with its litter mates.

A neighborhood mongrel dog was blamed for the freak. Dog and mother cat had fought all through her gestation. Mrs. Gannon's neighbors argued that those fights had marked the kittens. Henry Sternberger, who photographed the catdog and named it Nonesuch, thought that cat and dog might have mated. In any case, decided he, this was a freak in which the American Genetic Association should be interested.

Editor Robert C. Cook of the Association's Journal of Heredity published the pictures and report which Mr. Sternberger mailed. Commented Editor Cook last week: "There is no scientific justification whatever for Mr. Sternberger's expressed belief that the creature is a catdog hybrid, or that its appearance is due to the exploded theory of 'maternal impressions.' We are dealing almost certainly with a genetic variation in this case, inherited as a recessive character, which characters ordinarily appear in the progeny of normal parents. (Feeblemindedness in humans behaves in the same way, as do a multitude of other characteristics.)" Editor Cook tried to get Mrs. Gannon's "catdog" for study. She refused, fearing that the animal might not be well cared.

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