FeELis.- BFL 7) 
” 
An observant sportsman, ‘‘ Hawkeye,” in one of his letters to the 
South of India Observer, remarks that ‘‘on one occasion a gentleman 
saw an old leopard accompanied by two of her offspring, one red, the 
other black.” He also says he has never known “ of two black leopards 
in company,” but black pards have bred in zoological gardens. I am 
told that cubs have been born in the Calcutta Garden, but they did not 
live. General MacMaster, in his notes on Jerdon, makes the pertinent 
remark: ‘‘ If however black panthers are only accidental, it is odd that 
no one has yet come on a black specimen of one of the larger cats, 7: Zo 
tigris.” I see no reason why such should not yet be discovered ; he was 
perhaps not aware that the jaguar of Brazil, which comes next to the 
tiger, has been found black (Fe/is nigra of Erxleben). <A black tiger 
would be a prize. General MacMaster relates that he once watched a 
fine black cat basking in the sun, and noticed that in particular lights 
the animal exhibited most plainly the regular brindled markings of the 
ordinary gray wild or semi-wild cat. ‘These markings were as black or 
blacker than the rest of his hair. His mother was a half-wild gray 
brindle. 
I think we have sufficient evidence that the black pard is merely a 
variety of the common one, but now we come to the pards themselves, 
and the question as to whether there are two distinct species or two 
varieties ; Blyth, Jerdon and other able naturalists, although fully 
recognizing the differences, have yet hesitated to separate them, and 
they still remain in the unsatisfactory relation to each other of varieties. 
I feel convinced in my own mind that they are sufficiently distinct to 
warrant their being classed, and specifically named apart. It is not as ~ 
I said before, that we should go upon peculiarities of marking and colour, 
although these are sufficiently obvious, but on their osteology and also 
the question of interbreeding and production. Grant their relative sizes, 
one so much bigger than the other, and the difference in colour and 
marking, has it ever been known that out of a litter of several cubs by a 
female of the larger kind, one of the smaller sort has been produced, or 
vice verst? ‘This is a question that yet remains for investigation. My 
old district had both kinds in abundance, and I have had scores of cubs, 
of both sorts, brought to me—cubs which could be distinguished at a 
glance as to which kind they belonged to, but I never remember any 
mixture of the two. As regards the difference in appearance of the 
adults there can be no question. The one isa higher, longer animal, with 
smooth shiny hair of a light golden fulvous, the spots being clear and 
well defined, but, as is remarked by Sir Walter Elliot, the strongest 
difference of character is in the skulls, those of the larger pard being 
longer and more*pointed, with a ridge running along the occiput, much 
developed for the attachment of the muscles, whereas the smaller pard 
has not only a rougher coat, the spots being more blurred, but it is 
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