100 MAMMALIA. 



fawn colour above ; the flank longitudinally marked with four rows of 

 ocellated spots, that is, with rings more or less complete, having a 

 black point in the middle ; white beneath, transversely striped with 

 black. Sometimes individual specimens are found black, whose 

 rings, of a deeper hue, are only perceptible in a particular light. 



F. pardus, L. ; the Pardalis of the ancients ; Cuv. Menag. du 

 Mus. 8vo. I. p. 212. (The Panther). Fawn coloured above ; white 

 beneath; with six or seven rows of black spots, resembling roses, 

 that is, formed by the assemblage of five or six simple spots on each 

 flank ; the tail is the length of the body, minus that of the head. 



This species is scattered throughout all Africa, the southern parts 

 of Asia, and the Indian Archipelago. 



In some of them the ground of the fur is black, with spots of a 

 deeper black — F. melas, Per., but they are not a distinct species. 

 We have frequently seen black and fawn-coloured young ones suckled 

 by the same mother*. 



F. leopardus, L. (The Leopard). From Africa ; similar to the 

 Panther, but has ten rows of smaller spots -j-. 



These two species are smaller than the Jaguar. Travellers and 

 furriers designate them indiscriminately by the names of Leopard^ 

 Panther, African Tiger, &c.;J;. 



There is a third, peculiar to the distant parts of the East Indies, 

 that is a little lower; tail equal in length to the body and head; 

 spots smaller and more numerous ; the F. chalyheata, Herm. ; 

 Schreb. CI.§. 



F. discolor, L. ; Buff. VIII. xix. (The Couguar or Puma). 

 Red, with small spots of a slightly deeper red which are not easily 

 perceived. From both Americas, where it preys on Deer, Sheep, 

 &c.||. 



Among the inferior species we should distinguish the Lynxes, 



* Temminck calls this species Felis leopardus. 



t The same naturalist considers our Leopard as a variety of our Panther, and 

 confounds them under his Felis leopardus. 



X Buffon has mistaken the Jaguar, wliich he took for the Panther of the eastern 

 continent, and has not well distinguished the Panther and the Leopard, and for this 

 reason we cannot positively quote his pi. xi, xii, xiii and xiv. of Vol. VI IL 



§ It is to this species that Temminck atfixes the name of Panther, because he 

 thinks Linnasus alluded to it, when speaking of his Felis pardus in the " cauda elon- 

 gala." There is one thing very certain, and that is, that the Panther, so well known 

 to the ancients, and which was so often produced at the Roman games, could not 

 possibly have been an animal from the extreme parts of oriental Asia. 



The Ounce of Buff. IX. pi. xiii {Felis uncia, Gm.), diflers from the Panthers and 

 Leopards by the inequality of the spots, which are more irregularly distributed, and 

 partly crenate or annulated, Sec. It appears to be found in Persia. We only know 

 it by the iigure of Buffon, and that which Mr. Hamilton Smith has inserted in the 

 work of Griffith, taken from a specimen that was living in London. 



II That this animal, our common Panther, does not always confine itself to sheep, 

 &c. is well known, and has lately been proved, January, 1830, by an unprovoked 

 attack upon an unfortunate woman in Pennsylvania. The ferocious brute seized 

 upon her as she was passing along the road, and killed her in an instant. See Griif., 

 part V. p. 438 — An American trsnslation. 



