230 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



style of the snow-leopard. The African races may all be 

 considered small-spotted, although they show racial differ- 

 ences in the degree of smallness of the spots. Indian leop- 

 ards are comparatively uniform in size compared with the 

 African, the largest races of which exceed any Indian, while 

 the diminutive nanopardus of Somaliland represents the 

 smallest of all known races. The African races number 

 some eight or ten forms, which are distinguishable by differ- 

 ences in body size, skull shape, arrangement of spots, and 

 general coloration. In Africa the leopard occurs every- 

 where, except in waterless desert tracts, from the seacoast 

 to the limits of vegetation on the highest mountains. It 

 is rare, however, in the depth of the forest and in the alpine 

 zone of the high mountains. About the forest edges and 

 in bush country it is most abundant. The sexes differ 

 much in size, the males usually showing an excess of forty 

 pounds over females. There are, however, no differences 

 in color, but female skulls may be recognized, aside from 

 the difference in size, by the relatively much smaller size 

 of the canine and carnassial teeth. The young are much 

 more finely spotted than the adults, owing to the spots 

 which later coalesce and form the rosettes being widely 

 separated and appearing as distinct solid spots, no rosette 

 formation being evident. This broken condition of the 

 ocellations, or rosettes, remains until the animal is of large 

 size, and has given rise among some hunters or sportsmen 

 to the belief in the existence of two species inhabiting the 

 same locality, a fine-spotted and a large-spotted form. 



Save where it has been killed out, the leopard is found all 

 over Africa, as well as in southern Asia. From the standpoint 

 of animal coloration it is interesting to compare the distri- 



