EAST AFRICAN MAMMALS IN NATIONAL MUSEUM. 151 



ACINONYX JUBATUS RAINEYI Heller. 



Plates 5, 41. 



1910. Cynmlunis juhatus guttatus Roosevelt, African Game Trails, Amer. ed., 

 p. 476; London ed., p. 487. (Part; not of Hermann.) 



1913. Acinonyx juhatus raineyi Heller, Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 01, No. 19, 



p. 9. November 8. (Ulu Station, Kapiti Plains, British East Africa; 

 type in U. S. Nat. Mus.) 



1914. Acinonyx jubatus raineyi Roosevelt and Heller, Life-Hist. African Game 



Animals, vol. 1, p. 428. 



Specimens. — Six, from localities as follows: 



British East Africa: Juja Farm, Athi Plains, 1 (McMillan); 

 Kapiti Station, 1 (Rainey); Ulu Station, 3 (Rainey) ; Wami Hill, 

 Kapiti Plains, 1 (K. Roosevelt). 



Tliis is a very slightly marked form of the cheetah, barely recogniz- 

 able from Acinonyx juhatus velox. There are three skins of fiiUy 

 adult animals in the collection, and when these are compared with 

 the series of velox a few average differences in color are noticeable, 

 but these are by no means well marked or constant. The peculiar 

 pinkish cast to the buffy ground color is almost matched in intensity 

 by two skins from the Loita Plains; and the larger, less thickly 

 placed body spots, and slightly less heavily marked feet are also 

 characteristics closely (though not quite) matched in certain skins 

 of velox. It is desirable that more skins of raineyi be obtained for 

 further study. 



The cheetah described by Hilzheimer from Ngorongoro, south of 

 Lake Natron, German East Africa, as Acinonyx guttatus ngoron- 

 gorensis,^ should be, theoretically, the same form as this. There are 

 certain discrepancies in the description, however, which make it 

 unsafe to combine the two without better evidence. The type of 

 ngorongorensis is said to be in ground color ''Isabella yellow-brown," 

 the underside "very light Isabella entirely without white;" the 

 cheeks grayish, the back of the ear "yellow, with a slender black 

 stripe at the base." All of these statements disagree with the speci- 

 mens of raineyi which are distinctly pinkish-buff in ground-color; 

 the belly is largely white, the cheeks not grayish, and the ear has the 

 normal wide black area across its base. Hilzheimer's description was 

 drawn up from a specimen living in the Leipzig Zoological Garden 

 and may be faulty; the animal may have changed color greatly, as 

 captive cats in strange climates are known to do; or the locality may 

 be erroneous. Cheetahs are sometimes captured by natives and 

 traded alive, and might reach Europeans some distance from the 

 original point of capture. The name has priority over raineyi, and 

 additional specimens from the Ngorongoro district are greatly 

 desired as an aid in settUng its status. 



» Sitz.-ber. Ges. nat. Freimde Berlin, 1913, p. 290. 



