The Caracal 



THE CARACAL 



{Felis caracal') 



Native Names. — Siyah-gush^ Persian ; Karakal, Turki 



(Plate viii, fig. lo) 



The names Siyah-gush and Karakal both refer to the 

 black ears of this animal, which form one of its most 

 distinguishing features, when viewed from behind, siyah 

 meaning black in Persian, and kara having the same 

 signification in Turki. Other instances of the employ- 

 ment of the same words occur in Siyah-posh^ for the 

 black-clothed Kafirs of Central Asia, and Karakorum 

 (black sand) as the name of a pass on the route to 

 Yarkand. The caracal has a wide geographical distribu- 

 tion, ranging from Africa through Palestine, Arabia, 

 Syria, the Taurus, Mesopotamia, and Persia, to Baluch- 

 istan and India, and also occurring in Transcaspia. 

 In Ceylon it is unknown ; and in India, where it is 

 everywhere rare, it is more abundant, as might have 

 been expected, in the western districts, such as Sind, 

 Kutch, and the Punjab, although it is met with over a 

 great part of the peninsula, in suitable localities. It is 

 unknown in the Eastern Himalaya and Bengal, as it 

 also is on the Malabar coast. By Vigne it was stated 

 to occur in the Upper Indus Valley, and he gives ech as 

 its Ladaki name ; but this term is evidently the same 

 as ee^ which is commonly used for the Tibet lynx ; and if 

 the animal was seen by that traveller in Baltistan and 

 Ladak, it was probably in a state of captivity. 



The caracal forms a connecting link between the 

 jungle-cat and the true lynxes ; its ears resembling 

 those of the latter in being furnished with large tufts 

 of long black hairs at their tips, although its tail is 

 much longer, and the throat and chest lack the 

 distinctive lynx-ruff. Still the caracal is more of a 

 lynx than a cat, its skull and teeth being decidedly 



339 



