592 



MERRIAM 



Couguar have been seen there, and east of the mountains." Hence it 

 appears that Rafinesque, as long ago as 1S32, recognized at least 8 

 varieties of cougar as inhabiting the United States from Carolina and 

 Kentucky northward. I find no evidence to show that he ever saw a 

 specimen of any of these, his descriptions (if such they may be called) 

 being based wholly on the accounts of hunters and travelers, assisted 

 by his fertile imagination. 



FELIS HIPPOLESTES AZTECUS subsp. nov. 

 Mexican Cougar. 



Type from Colonia Garcia, Chihuahua, Mexico. No. 99658 $ ad. 



U. S. National Museum, Biological Survev Coll. Oct. 17, 1899, 



H. A. Cluff. Orig. No. 2401. 



Characters. — Animal large and powerful but decidedly smaller 

 than hippolestes ; general color dull fulvous as in hippolestes^ but tail 

 darker, browner, with longer black tip and no white underneath 

 (much as in olympus) ; ears almost wholly black. 



Cranial characters. — Skull large and massive, similar in general 

 to that of hippolestes but decidedly shorter ; braincase of same size; 

 frontals narrower interorbitally (the interorbital breadth in adult males 

 averaging about 40 or less instead of 48 or more) ; sagittal crest less 

 highly developed ; upper carnassial teeth lighter and thinner ; lower 

 teeth (particularly the carnassial) smaller throughout. 



Remarks. — Compared with coryi from Florida the whole animal 

 is very much paler and grayer ; top of head and upperparts generally 

 dull grayish fulvous instead of intense ferruginous ; underparts whiter ; 

 black of ear not extending below actual base of ear ; color of chin and 

 lips very different, being soiled white instead of intense yellowish buff. 



A skin in the collection of the Biological Survey from Fort Bowie, 

 Arizona, is paler and grayer (less fulvous) than the skins from Chi- 

 huahua, and has the back much more conspicuously mixed with black 

 hairs. The same is true in even greater degree of a skin in the 

 National Museum from Eagle Pass, Texas. 



The skull of aztecus is considerably smaller than that of hippolestes 

 and may be characterized briefly as short., heavy, and massive, with 

 narrow interorbital region., elevated arched frontals, and well devel- 

 oped sagittal crest — though never so high as in hippolestes. Three 

 skulls of adult males from a single locality, Colonia Garcia, Chihuahua, 

 exhibit a most amazing variation in the size "of the audital bullae, a 

 degree of variation which in most mammals would characterize per- 

 fectly distinct species. In one of these skulls (No. 99660) the bullae 



