THE OCELOT CAT 23 



been already conferred on the Felis bengalensis of 

 South Eastern Asia. The tiger cat always has its 

 spots shorter than the ocelot ; they are often solid, 

 and never aggregated into chains. 



A fine coloured plate of four ocelots, delineated by 

 the master hand of Joseph Wolf, will be found in 

 Elliott's "Monograph of the Felidtz" A handsome 

 specimen of the typical race has sprung upon a wild 

 turkey which lies, a dishevelled bundle of red bronze 

 and metallic green, in the strong grip of the wild cat. 

 Hard by a melanura ocelot is seen, standing with 

 uplifted paw as if about to dispute possession of the 

 prey; the captor, however, with snarling lip and 

 lashing tail asserts the right of conquest. A third 

 ocelot (var. grisea) stands reared up against a tree, 

 prying with cat-like curiosity to ascertain the cause 

 of the disturbance ; a fourth animal (grey and striped) 

 stands knee-deep in the long grass, its beautiful head 

 posed in a manner suggesting a waterbuck amid the 

 sedges of an African river. The foreground is 

 littered with feathers shaken from the luckless 

 turkey; a background of waving grasses, plumed and 

 luxuriant, completes a wonderfully vivid picture of 

 animal life. 1 



The ocelot ranges from Paraguay northwards into 

 Mexico and the south-western border of the United 

 States. Mainly nocturnal, it resembles the great 



1. This plate might well have been styled "La Rixe" (the quarrel) after 

 the famous picture. 



