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One of the most familiar characters in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice in Wonderland is the quirky Cheshire cat, who has a sardonic rictus which remains behind while the rest of the feline slowly disappears. There is no cat breed called a Cheshire, and many folks (or more honestly, probably just a few folks) have wondered and speculated about the origin of the term.
The most likely explanation is that there was a cheese sold in Cheshire, England, which was produced from a mold which formed it into the likeness of a smiling cat. The cheese cat was often cut from the tail end first, so that the piece remaining at the end after the rest of the cat disappeared would contain the cat's mouth.
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