ABSTRACT
The foregoing description of the origin of calicos wasn’t suf-fi ciently explicit to satisfy our visitors, who oft en asked, “If there aren’t any males to speak of, how do you get more calicos?”
For starters, The Book of the Cat provides detailed pictures of reproductive systems that make it abundantly clear how you get more cats, even calicos . Generally speaking, it’s just what one might expect: sperm, eggs, heat, hormones, caterwauling. Cats, it seems, are a litt le diff erent in that instead of releasing eggs at regular intervals , like people, they release them on demand when they come into heat (several times a year) and then are prodded into action by the unpleasantly barbed and spiny penis of the male (that was a surprise). Also unlike people, they commonly release from three to six eggs at a time. Because cats in nature are oft en solitary, not sitt ing together over the breakfast table or going to the movies but coming together only to mate, both ovulation on demand and multiple egg release help ensure successful propagation of the species.
