Game Animals of India, etc. 



middle line of the back. ; and the majority, if not all of 

 the spots on the limbs, are of the solid type, although 

 larger than those on the shoulders. These features 

 are well displayed in fig. 51. As a rule, the middle 

 line of the back is marked by a broad dark streak, 

 and the centres of the rosettes are elsewhere not 

 conspicuously darker than the general ground-colour. 

 In a few skins the rosettes all over the body tend to 

 break up into small irregular spots ; and it is occasion- 

 ally difficult to decide whether a particular skin is 

 Indian or African, although there is no difficulty at all 

 in determining the locality of a series. 



Another point is that there are no black leopards in 

 Africa, although occasionally specimens are met with 

 on the high grounds of South Africa in which practically 

 the whole of the rosettes are broken up into minute, 

 widely separated spots, while the ground-colour is 

 darker than usual and the middle line of the back 

 almost completely black. In one such specimen the 

 semi-blackness of the back extends over the whole 

 of the upper-parts, although the spots are still more 

 or less distinctly visible. African leopards generally 

 appear to be comparatively small, and in Somaliland 

 there is a pigmy race {F. pardus nanopardus) in which 

 the length of flat skins of males is less than six feet, 

 while those of females are still smaller. 



In East African specimens the ground-colour of the 

 skin is generally light golden tawny, with the under- 

 parts and the inner surface of the limbs white. On 

 the other hand, leopards from the moist forest region 

 of the west coast are darker, the ground-colour of the 

 upper-parts being olive tawny, and that of the lower 

 parts yellow tawny. 



In the year 1777 Erxleben applied the name Felis 

 leopardus to the African leopard, and in the absence 

 of any evidence to the contrary, it may be permissible 

 to consider this typified by the East African leopard, 

 which should then be known as F . pardus leopardus. 



312 



