176 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
was a cross between the lion and the pard, from a fancied resemblance 
to the former on account of the mane or ruff of hair possessed by the 
hunting leopard. Apparently this animal must have been more 
familiar to our remote ancestors than the pard, for the name has been 
attached for centuries to the larger spotted Cats indiscriminately. I 
have not time just now to attempt to trace the species of the leopard 
which formerly graced the arms of the English kings, but I should not 
be surprised if it were the guepard or chita. The old representations 
were certainly attenuated enough; and the animal must have been 
familiar to the crusaders, as we know it was before them to the Romans. 
Mr. Blyth, who speculated on the origin of the name, in one of his 
able articles on the felines of India in the /vdia Sporting Review of April 
1856, makes no allusion to the above nor to the probable confusion 
that may have arisen in the middle ages over the spotted Cats. Although 
the term leopard, as applied to panthers, has the sanction of almost 
immemorable custom, I do not see why, in writing on the subject, we 
should perpetuate the misnomer, especially as most naturalists and 
sportsmen are now inclined to make the proper distinction. I have 
always avoided the use of the term leopard, except when speaking of 
the hunting chita, preferring to call the others panthers. 
Then again we come on disputed ground. Of panthers how many 
have we, and how should they be designated? I am not going farther 
afield than India in this discussion beyond alluding to the fact that the 
jaguar of Brazil is almost identical with our pard as far as marking goes, 
but is a stouter, shorter-tailed animal, which justifies his being classed as 
a species ; therefore we must not take superficial colouring as a test, 
but class the black and common pards together; the former, which 
some naturalists have endeavoured to made into a separate species 
(Felis melas), being merely a variety of the latter. They present the 
same characteristics, although Jerdon states that the black is the smaller 
animal. They have been found in Java to inhabit the same den, 
according to Professor Reinwardt and M. Kuhl, and they inter-breed, as 
has been proved by the fact that a female black pard has produced a 
black and a fulvous cub at the same birth. This is noticed by Mr. 
Sanderson in his book, and he got the information from the director of 
the Zoological Society’s Menagerie at Amsterdam. ‘‘Old Fogy,” a 
constant contributor to the old /udia Sporting Review, a good sportsman 
and naturalist, with whom Blyth kept up a correspondence, wrote in 
October 1857 that, ‘‘in a litter of four leopard cubs one was quite 
black ; they all died, but both the parents were of the ordinary colour 
and marking ; they were both watched at their cave, and at last shot, 
one with an arrow through the heart. Near a hill village a black male 
leopard was often seen and known to consort with an ordinary female. 
I have observed them myself once, if not twice.” 
