48 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



ornaments/ This species has been said to inhabit 

 Thibet, a statement rightly contested by Dr. Jerdon, 

 who pointed out that so treeless a country was little 

 suited to a forest-lover like the clouded tiger. The 

 animal is certainly found at considerable elevations ; 

 Mr. Hose found Bornean examples on Mt. Dulit 

 at a height of 5,000 feet and on Mt. Batu Song as 

 far as 2,000 feet. Nevertheless, this very circum- 

 stance tends to strengthen Dr. Jerdon's objection ; 

 for in the hio;h regions of Sikkim the rano^e of the 

 clouded tig-er becomes co-terminous with that of the 

 snow leopard or ounce. Both animals are large cats 

 with handsome variegated skins and ample tails; 

 both inhabit remote regions and hence both are 

 (or were) almost unknown to Europeans. Hence 

 any naturalist relying, as one is often obliged to do, 

 on native reports more or less imperfectly understood 

 might readily confuse the two. Even a description 

 acctirate as faT- as it went might when conveyed in a 

 native dialect be quite misleading. A description of 

 the now famous okapi of the Congo forest as a 

 horse-like animal with more than one hoof, might 

 well lead an explorer to suppose that it had a three- 

 toed foot like the extinct hipparion of Pliocene 

 France." The badger-like kaureke, said to have 

 formerly inhabited the Timaru district of New 



1 The present value of a clouded tiger skin in tlie London market is 

 about £3 or £4. 



- See Sir H. H. Jolinston's work on tlie Uganda Protectorate, vol. 

 i., p. 380, for this very point. 



