Liberia ^ 



is the Tiger Cat of the Liberiaiis — the Golden Cat of our 

 museums {Felis cflidogaster). This animal is not peculiar 

 to Liberia, but its distribution, so far as we know, is 

 absolutely confined to the forest region of West Africa. Its 

 range on the west begins at the Gambia. There is no reason 

 why, like so many other forest forms, it should not extend 

 eastwards to the north-eastern limits of the Congo Basin. 

 But hitherto it has not been recorded from farther east than 

 Dahome. 



A remarkable and hitherto unexplained feature of this 

 type of forest cat is the existence apparently side by side of 

 two well-marked varieties. One torm ot Felis ceiidogaster is 

 almost coppery red in the general coloration on the upper 

 parts, the spots being small anci faint, and fusing so much 

 into the reddish grey colour ot the intervening fur that in 

 some lights the whole upper surface of the body appears to 

 be copper-colour. Nearer to the whitish flanks, on the cheeks 

 and breast, these spots, however, become black, anci occasionally 

 lengthen out into short stripes. Between the white parts and 

 the deep reddish brown ot the upper there is not infrequently 

 a beautiful pale gold tinge in the fur. The other variety is 

 somewhat larger in size, with a proportionately bigger heaci, 

 rather shorter, smoother hair, with larger and very distinct 

 dark brown spots on a lighter grey ground. This greyer 

 type has also these patches of pale golden-yellow between the 

 under and upper parts of the body and on the lower cheeks. 

 The grey type in the males sometimes grows to almost the 

 size of a caracal, but the copper-coloured variety is scarcely 

 larger than a big domestic cat. Both of these types occur side 

 by side in Liberia. 



Until I was able to prove this by the collection of skins 

 of both types from the same locality (of which a photographic 



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