Gwendolyn Welborn, age 13, of Winston Salem, for her  question:

What is a Siamese cat?

Andy often tries to make a list of the Seven Wonders of the World of Nature. There are so many wonders that the list changes. One item, however, is sure to remain. That an all furry wonder is Andy’s Siamese cat Rama. Like all his relatives, he is a handsome animal, clever and of good character. Like almost all his relatives, he is devoted to human beings. Only rarely do we find an unfriendly Siamese cat and this is because he has been neglected during his kittenhood.

The basic color of the Siamese cat is honey blond and the fur is short and silky. Ha is decorated with  d ark areas o f color called points.  Most Siamese cats are seal points, with dark areas of chocolate brown. The more rare blue point cat has decorations of dusky blue. The arms and legs, tail and ears are of the dark color and the Siamese cat always wears a dark Mardi gras mask over his intelligent face. His beautiful eyes ere blue as bluebells and his dark nose is set off with a pair of crisp, white whiskers.

In some Siamese cats, the blue eyes are slightly crossed. Even a straight eyed Siamese tends to become a little cross eyed as he gazes lovingly into your face. Once in a while, we find a Siamese cat with a kink in his tail. Neither the cross eyes nor the kinky tail count against him in a cat show. When he stands up, you can see that this animal has back legs longer than his front legs. Even more amazing, the claws on his back feet are like those of a dog. He cannot sheath them,

The ancestors of our Siamese cats came from Siam. There they lived in the palaces and temples for countless generations.

In about 1885, a f ew of them were taken to England where they were much admired. Some ten years later, they were first brought to America. .

Cats, as we know, are great mixers and the Siamese have kittens by any of our native cats. The half breed kittens often inherit some of the brains and affection of their Siamese parents. But they never look like Siamese cats. A true Siamese kitten is born white with a dark dot on his nose about the size of a grain of pepper. Soon there is a dark smudge on each foot, dark fuzz on the little ears and the smallest dot at the end of the bitsy tail. As the kitty grows, these dark areas become his elegant points. If he grows up looking like a Siamese cat, we may be quite sure that both his parents were Siamese,

Andy thinks that a Siamese cat is the best of all possible pets for he has the good qualities of both dog and cat. His Rama sometimes growls like a dog when he is not conversing in Siamese, which is why Andy calls him a puppy cat: