THE OCELOT CAT 21 



coloration, a good series of museum skins exhibits 

 every gradation of hue and pattern, and quite a 

 number of sub-species might be made of this one 

 animal already quite enough of a zoological puzzle. 

 All forms have the head and limbs dotted over with 

 small spots, two black stripes on each cheek, and a 

 band on the inside of the foreleg ; the body is marked 

 more or less distinctly with longitudinally arranged 

 blotches, and the tail is semi-ringed. The typical 

 ocelot is tawny yellow or reddish grey in ground 

 colour, handsomely streaked and blotched with 

 longitudinal chains of darker hue. The blotches are 

 margined with black, and enclose an area darker 

 than the general tint of the fur ; the under parts are 

 whitish. Note now the variations from this, the 

 typical form : 



(a) INTENSIFICATION OF COLOUR. The so-called 

 Felis melanura is the fulvous variety of the ocelot ; 

 in the brightness and clear-cut intensity of its 

 markings it recalls the normal female form of the 

 silver-washed fritillary butterfly. The fur of the 

 fulvous ocelot, itself richly coloured, is so crowded 

 over with intense black markings as to cause the 

 white underparts to stand out in brilliant contrast ; 

 the tail is, likewise, intense black. The present form 

 was first described in 1844 by Mr. Bell from a 

 specimen living in the London Zoological Gardens, 

 and Louis Fraser, the collector for Lord Derby's 

 museum, also figured it in his work "Zoologia 



