THE SERVAL CAT 23 



amiability of this individual, one may mention the 

 savage temper of two half-grown kittens, now in 

 the same collection : these young servals, though 

 barely half the size of their predecessor, are vicious 

 enough, and ever ready to spit and snarl. 



No account of the serval would be complete 

 without a short notice of the servaline cat of West 

 Africa (Felts servalina), a form so closely connected 

 with the present species that it is doubtful whether 

 it is not a mere variety of it, like the black-footed 

 cat. It has already been mentioned that some 

 servals have the spots small and numerous, instead 

 of few and large ; this is exactly the case with the 

 servaline cat, but the diminution in the size of the 

 spots is carried a degree further, the skin being 

 profusely ornamented with a multitude of minute 

 black dots. A comparison of living Felis serval 

 with living Felis servalina, side by side, reveals 

 but little real difference between the two, save for 

 the shorter tail of the latter. 1 The servaline cat 

 has a few bold, black markings about the neck and 

 throat, and the tiny black spots are distributed 

 over a ground colour of greyish brown ; the whitish 

 band on the back of the ear, and the black stripes 

 on the inside of the fore-leg, which occur in the 

 true serval, are also found in the servaline cat. 



i The iris is greyish yellow in young F. serval, and pure yellow in 

 adult F. servalina. A direct comparison of the eyes of the two 

 species at the same age would be very instructive. 



