Jasmine, the evil cat who is sometimes the bane of my swollen and itchy eyes, most likely knows things I cannot imagine. However, she's just a mean old calico who in other ways is an innocent in the world outside her indoor territory. I take comfort in knowing different things she does not know.

While she longs to be outside and sits at the window each day coveting culinary delights such as tree frogs, lizards, and bugs to play with -- the wild coyotes, etc. that live in the nature preserve surrounding our home would find her a tasty meal.

The World of Big And Little Cats That Jasmine Knows Not

Lion, tiger, leopards -- pale in wonderance with the ounce, or snow-leopard, which haunts the towering Himalayas.

In summer it ranges up to eighteen thousand feet. It is formidable at a height where a man is so exhausted that he thinks twice before undergoing the exertion of turning over in bed. There this great cat lives, never coming lower than six thousand feet.

They are smaller than other types of big cats, weighing under one hundred and twenty pounds and about forty-five inches long, sans the tail which will be equally as long as the body. The tail is interesting in that they use it to cover their faces at sleep to keep it warm.

Snow leopards have very thick fur designed to live in their very cold environment and are of varying color, with open rosettes on their bodies, head, legs and tail. Compared to their size, their ears are small rounded, while their feet have wide, big pads.

Unlike their big cat cousins, snow leopards do not roar in warning and are usually upon their prey before the unsuspecting victims knows.

While their exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, it is thought that there are less than seven thousand world wide and they are a critically endangered species.

Well, so far I've been talking about the great cats of the Old World, but if you come to what used to be referred to as the "New World" -- here in America we find no lions or tigers, but interesting parallels.

The American Jaguar is a big spotted cat with huge, powerful limbs. Its coat is decorated with rosettes, somewhat like a leopard's coat. However, you can easily tell them apart. From fossil remains we know that they've been on this continent for more than two million years.

In the center of some of the jaguar's rosettes you will see a clearly marked spot, which the leopard does not have.

The American jaguar is an accomplished swimmer and climber, a deadly foe to cattle and horses and it is ready to kill an unarmed man if it is very hungry.

Sadly, the American jaguar has been almost wiped off the face of the United States map, although conservation groups are working hard to save the remaining populations in Mexico and Central America.

America's lion is the puma, which, if men were not there to dispute its path to progress, might become plentiful, and for this reason that the more varied an animal's diet the great that animal's chance for survival. In different parts of this country, it is known by many names, including:

• Catamount
• Mountain lion
• Mountain cat
• Panther

The puma eats anything, from a pig to a porcupine, from a horse to a snail, from a sheep to a bullock. This fact alone should have kept it's population from declining, but excessive hunting in past generations and loss of habitat have significantly dropped the species numbers.

It has been in times past a terrible scourge to ranches, and in olden days exterminated the half-wild horses which roamed free in Patagonia.

The one thing in its favor is that in no circumstances will it attack man unless it has to fight him to save its own life. It ranges from Canada to Patagonia, and bears different names, as cougar, panther, and mountain lion, in different sections.

There are dozens of other cats. There is one beast, called the Clouded leopard, which is as much as a tree dweller as a sloth.

The Lynx is of both Old and the New Worlds and the Carcals are also cats. Then, we launch into a world of lesser cats, like the Golden cat of the Indo-Malay areas, which has a gray Chinese cousin. There is also the Fishing cat, which not only catches fish but small animals as well.

Other wild cats worth mentioning are the Leopard cats, the Serval, the tiger cat, the eyra (a weasel like cat), and of course the Egyptian or Kaffir cat -- from which our own domestic cats are all believed to have descended from. Each one is destiny to some order of grass-feeders.

There are other cats, and in discussing cats I must draw to your attention the cheetah, more cat than dog, yet not quite cat either -- a leopard-like beast with claws resembling a dog's and there capable of freely working in and out of their sheaths.

The animal is remarkable as one which is caught young and trained to hunt like a dog, its quarry usually being the black buck of India.

A cheetah runs down the fleetest of grass-feeders and is regarded as the fastest of all runners for any distance up to about four hundred yards. It is a fine sprinter, but tires on long runs.