Game Animals of India, etc. 



than the rest of the fur, and the tail is relatively short 

 and the head long. A mounted example of this type 

 is exhibited, in a crouching attitude, in the British 

 Museum. Although in a large series it may be difficult 

 to assign individual skins and skulls to one or the 

 other, if the two forms are, as a whole, distinguish- 

 able and restricted to particular localities, they are 

 undoubtedly entitled to recognition. 



The Indian race of the leopard (whether in both 

 of its two phases is uncertain) probably extends into 

 the Malay countries and the south of China ; but in 

 Baluchistan, Persia, etc., it is replaced by a distinct 

 race, of which the characteristics are given below. In 

 Manchuria the species is represented by F. pardus 

 villosa^ of which a mounted example is exhibited in the 

 British Museum ; this being much more distinct than 

 any of the other local races of the species, and present- 

 ing the extreme divergence from the small -spotted 

 African race. In general massiveness of build the 

 Manchurian leopard is indeed very similar to the tiger 

 of the same region, having stout and somewhat clumsy 

 limbs, a relatively short and broad head, and long, 

 thick fur. The spots are much larger and more widely 

 separated than in Indian leopards. The ground-colour 

 of the fur is pale sandy, but the light centres of the 

 rosettes, especially on the back, are much darker than 

 the general body-colour. The solid spots of the head 

 are continued on to the region of the shoulders, and 

 thence down the whole of the fore-limbs, similar solid 

 spots reappearing on the hind-legs. These large spots 

 are widely separated from one another, and nearly 

 circular in shape, and thus markedly different from the 

 small, closely-crowded, and irregular solid spots on the 

 fore-quarters of African leopards, while they are equally 

 different from the annulated spots occurring in the 

 same region in the Indian representative of the species. 

 The dark rings are, in fact, much less broken up than in 

 either the Indian or African races. A leopard-skin from 



316 



