CHAP. XII.] 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF CATS. 



397 



(5.) THE PUMA ou AMERICAN LION (Felis concokr}.* 



5. The Puma is a large cat, somewhat like a rather slender 

 lioness, as it is unstriped and unspotted when adult, and devoid of a 

 mane. It is of a reddish brown or reddish grey colour generally, 

 whitish heneath. The young are marked with blackish brown spots, 

 which disappear at about the end of the first year. 



Its head is proportionately rather small compared with those of 

 the large cats already noticed. Its length from snout to tail-root is 

 generally about forty inches, and it has a tail of some twenty-six 

 inches. 



The skull is remarkable for its depth anteriorly. The os hyoides 

 is connected with the skull by a continuous chain of bones, as in 

 the cat. 



The pupil is round. 



The puma eats deer, small quadrupeds, and the Rhea, or American 

 ostrich, and sometimes destroys human life. It is said to kill by 

 springing on the shoulders of its prey and then drawing back the 

 head with one paw till the neck is broken. 



It is a remarkably silent animal, never roaring like the lion and 

 tiger. 



It inhabits a very wide range, being spread over America from 

 the Straits of Magellan to Canada, and ascending the Andes to 

 9000 feet altitude. 



(6.) THE JAGUAII (Felis onca).-f 



This is also a New World species, and the most powerful of the 

 American cats. Its colour and markings are like those of the 

 leopard, save that its spots are larger and more definitely arranged 

 in groups, forming series of dark rings, each ring generally enclosing 

 one or more spots within it. There is, however, a considerable 

 amount of individual variation in the extent and arrangement of 

 these markings, and the most southern forms are said to be 

 generally yellow and sometimes almost white. 



In size the jaguar somewhat exceeds the leopard. 



A prominent bony tubercle exists on the middle of the inner or 

 nasal edge of the orbit. J 



The pupil is round. 



A variety has been described and figured by Dr. Gray as Lcopardus 

 Hernandesii. 



* See De Blainville, I. c., plate 6, 

 and Baird's Mammals of North America. 

 See also Godman and Salvin's Biologia 

 Centrali-Americana, Mammalia, by E. 

 R. Alston, p. 62. 



t See Elliot's Monograph, also Cuvier's 

 Ossemens Fossiles, plate 34, pp. 3 and 4, 



and De Blainville, I. c., plate 3 ; also 

 Biologia, p. 58. 



This tubercle exists also in some 

 other cats, but is not so largely or con- 

 stantly developed in any other species 

 as it is in the jaguar. 



Pro. ZooL Soc., 1857, p. 278, plate 

 58. 



