Leigh Fermor’s Mani has a fine selection of memorable cats.  I liked this description of the limited gene pools of island cats being occasionally expanded by a passing tom-cat enjoying a fecund night of shore-leave.

For other cats and cat customs noted by Leigh Fermor, see My Kinda Cats I, My Kinda Cats II, and, yes, My Kinda Cats III.

By the way, I’m not known for liking cats, but these all deserve to be remembered.

‘It must surely be the same with island cats, interbred for generations in steep un-cat-like habitats with only an occasional outside strain that comes to flower after the brief visit of some caique-dwelling tom.’

Source: Patrick Leigh Fermor, Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, introduction by Michael Gorra, New York: New York Review of Books, 2006 (1958), p. 302