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Birman
Cat
The Birman cat is a breed
of domestic cat.
This breed has a pale cream colored body and colored points of Seal, Blue,
Chocolate, Lilac, Lynx or Red Factor colors on the legs, tail and face.
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Birman
Blue
Point
Click
Pic To Enlarge
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The
body type varies from Persian-type
to Siamese-type.
Birman cats differ from conventional color-point cats with their white paws
called mittens.
The coat is medium-length, not as long and thick as a
Persian's, and does not mat.
The Birman cat is said to have originated in western
Burma;
and certainly cats with similar markings are recorded in documents from ancient
Thailand.
One story claims that a pair was given as a gift to an
Englishman named Major Gordon Russell and his friend August Pavie by the
priests of the Khmer people; another that the cats were acquired by an
American named Vanderbilt from a servant who had once been at the temple of
Lao-Tsun where the cats were kept as sacred animals.
Two cats were shipped to
France in approximately 1919. The male died in transit, but the female was
pregnant and gave birth to a litter of kittens in France.
These formed the
basis of a Birman cat breeding program and the breed was registered with the French Cat
Registry in 1925.
The Birman cat breed was almost wiped out during World War II.
Only two cats were alive in Europe at the end of the war, and they had to be
heavily outcrosses and rebred to rebuild the breed.
The restored Birman cat breed was recognized in Britain in 1965 and by the American
Cat
Fanciers' Association in 1966.
In reality modern western Birman cats are a hybrid of
Siamese
and Persian
breeds and may differ considerable from Burma
temple cats from which they originally obtained their white gloves.
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