Cats
occasionally a "tramp cat of Malay origin" strayed in and the resultant crossbred cats had
kinked tails.
In 1783, Willian Marsden, Fellow of the Royal Society and late Secretary to the President and
Council of Fort Marlborough wrote in "The History of Sumatra" of the Malay Cat: "All their
tails imperfect and knobbed at the end." In 'The Variation of Animals and Plants under
Domestication", Darwin wrote "throughout an immense area, namely, the Malayan
Archipelago, Siam, Pequan, and Burmah, all the cats have truncated tails about half the
proper length, often with a sort of knob at the end. […] The Madagascar cat is said to have a
twisted tail." Another writer and traveller, Mivart, had corroborated the statement regarding
the Malay cat, of which he said the tail "is only half the ordinary length, and often contorted
into a sort of knot, so that it cannot be straightened […] Its contortion is due to deformity of
the bones of the tail"
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