436 CAT TRIBE 



the eastern Transvaal. In Mr. Hunter's specimen the black spots are 

 stated to have been visible when the skin was held in certain lights. 

 While writing this volume I received from the Master of Belhaven a 

 photograph (herewith reproduced) of a black serval killed by himself 

 in July 1907, some twenty miles W.N.W. of Mount Kenia, in British 

 East Africa. The coat is described by the sender as absolutely coal- 

 black, no mention being made of any appearance of spots. 



The serval is a bush-haunting species, usually found not far from 

 water, and preying chiefly on birds, rats, mice, hares, and occasionally 

 the young of the smaller antelopes. Essentially nocturnal, it is not 

 often encountered by sportsmen, and is usually taken by natives by 

 means of snaring, or by hunting with dogs. 



THE SMALL-SPOTTED SERVAL 



{Felis servalina) 



There has been some doubt as to whether this cat should be 

 regarded as a species by itself or merely as a variety of the ordinary 

 serval. On this point Mr. R. L Pocock writes as follows on p. 663 of 

 the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1 907 : — 



" In every particular but pattern, that is to say in general form, 

 length, and slenderness of limb, length of tail, size of ears, and form 

 of skull, it resembles Felis serval. Even in pattern the difference is 

 rather one of degree than of kind. It is quite easy to imagine the 

 transition from F. serval to F. servalina by the breaking-up of the 

 cervical, scapular, and spinal [neck, shoulder, and back] stripes and of 

 the larger spots on the body in F. serval into a countless multitude of 

 small close-set spots showing obscure indication of serial arrangement 

 usually only on the spinal and cervical areas. The difference might 

 well be regarded merely as of subspecific importance, or perhaps as 

 indicative of variation comparable to that of the speckled leopard-skins 

 from Grahamstown [see p. 430]. 



" The available evidence seems, however, to me in favour of 

 regarding F. servalina as a valid species. In the first place, there 

 are, so far as I am aware, no skins showing a complete series of 

 gradations between this form and the typical serval, which is opposed 

 to the conclusion that the two are geographical races of the same 

 species. In the second place, the distribution of F. servalina appears to 

 accord very closely with that of many West African animals, like the 



