Cats
cats, another piece of information du Halde omitted in his compilation. Boym's illustration of
the sumxu ignores its ears, while Martini described them as the defining feature of the white
cats. Boym didn't liken the sumxu to cats and it is Kircher who made that comparison. The
sumxu (probably the Yellow Throated Marten) was a creature of south China while the lop-
eared cats were from Peking Province in the north. Buffon's leap was further misinterpreted
by later authors such as French writer Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest who combined the name
"sumxu" with the description of the lop-eared cat (its white colour being unknown to him)
as "hanging-ear cat, fur long and fine, black or yellow, domesticated in China in Peking
province (Pe-chi-ly) under the name of sumxu". This was perpetuated through the 19th and
early 20th centuries, especially by cat fanciers looking for new and exotic cats to import.
When China reopened to foreigners after the Opium Wars, a number of missionaries,
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