THE COLOCOLO. j 7 7 



came tolerably well peopled, and there are fewer plains, it 

 was probably exterminated by the inhabitants. I caught four 

 on the pampas of Buenos Aires, between the 35th and 36th 

 parallels of latitude, and three others on the Rio Negro, 

 without any of them retreating to caves. I know not whether 

 this was owing to there being none at hand, or that they have 

 a natural dislike to them. On one occasion in April, I took 

 from the uterus of a female Paja-Cat a single young one, with 

 hair just commencing to grow ; it is said, notwithstanding, 

 that they bring forth two, and even three, at a birth. They 

 subsist on the same food as the other species, principally on 

 Apereas (Cavies)." 



XXXIV. THE COLOCOLO. FELIS COLOCOLO. 



Felis colocolo, H. Smith, in Griffith's Animal Kingdom, vol. ii. 



p. 479 (1827); Mivart, The Cat, p. 413 (1881); Matschie, 



S.B. Nat. Fr. Berlin, 1894, p. 60. 



Felis strigilata, Wagner, in Schreber's Saiigethiere, Suppl. vol. 



ii. p. 546 (1841). 



(Plate XXL) 



Characters. — Although by previous writers the Colocolo of 

 the western side of South America has been widely sundered 

 from the Pampas Cat, the two are, according to Herr Matschie, 

 very closely related. Indeed, that observer considers that the 

 relationship between the two is similar to that obtaining be- 

 tween the typical Felis guigna of Chili and the so-called F. 

 geoffroyi of the eastern side of South America. As we have 

 considered the two latter as mere local races of a single species, 

 it would perhaps have been more logical to follow the same 

 course in the present instance ; especially since, as noted above, 

 specimens of the Pampas Cat have been described as having 

 markings like the Colocolo. Nevertheless, for the present at 

 least, it seems preferable to allow the latter to rank as a species. 



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