Persian cat: Bicolor

Past, present and future of Persian Bicolors

American owners always loved to bicolor, colored cats. In England, vice versa, it is cordial dislike to these colors, which become stronger probably because they are dofficult in breeding, though this color make cats more beautiful and sight. You can seldom meet piebald animals on the exhibitions in Russia, thye say that they are not in fashion, but it turns out that our owner don't know almost anything abou this color.

Gene of white Piebald Spotting is called gene of household, it is the most common among all spontaneous mutations, and is showed in many different forms, concerning to limitation of colored pigment in definite colors. Some form of this gene appears in all varieties of domestic animals, but is absence almost in all wild animals. Under the ruthless methods of natural selection, luxurious white marks would mean death. Known exception is zebra. Her stripes serve as camouflage in habitat. Nevertheless, colorful white marks were appreciated and selected by selectionists for continuation of genus in the breeding of domestic animals.

Past

Where did modern colors of bicolor and calico ( tortoiseshell on white) appear from? Today's Persians are, first of all, progeny of longhaired cats, imported to England and other parts of Europe during the middle - end 1800s from geographical regions countries Persia and Turkey of that time. Gene of Piebald Spotting was widespread then, but often was masked by prepotent white color, which is especially well-known in longhaired cats of Turkey.

If to pay attention in the past, we will see that all longhaired cats were prised together on the exhibitions and iffers of breeds were based more on colors, than on differs of type or the country of origin of given animals. Imagination of cats of american selectionists followed the leading at that time English exhibition rules in this attitude, so that on the earliest american exhibitions, for example, all white cats were valued at one class, and it didn't matter if their pedigree went back to Persia, Turkey or local cats from Man state (having occured in America with first sailors from Europe). This practice almost lost the type of Turkish Angoras cats, who assimilated into the big breed, which became known to us as Persian.

Unfortunately, earlier herd-books of England and America wil not allow to follow ways of development of all colors in full. At the beginning of the century bicolored Persians registered and showed and in England, and in the USA. But they were not popular, because there worked pedigree programs of breeding one colored cats (Solids) in England, and active efforts were spent to avoid white spottiness. In 1904 in one artical, devoted to the review of cat's shows in the attitude of bicolored colors, were said that '...it is more better to put to sleep such many-colored indiviuals at once or to sell them as domestic nurslings than to keep them as sires, spoiling purity, value, and reputation of colors.'

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