44 



STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS 



If one had the opportunity of examining hundreds of skins of 

 Leopards, Cheetahs, Tigers, and Cats, I have no doubt whatever 

 that a perfect series might be picked out which would easily 

 prove the transition from spots to stripes. The examples which 

 I have given, I think, are sufficient to convince any one of the 

 relationship of stripes to spots and rosettes. 



A word about the tadpole-shaped ocelli on both sides of the 



No. i. 



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No. 2. 



FIG. 29, No. !.() Large ocellus near ventral region 

 of Tiger skin ; (b) combination of a curious ocellus and 

 a pair of stripes ; (c] the spinal line. 



No. 2. (a t b, and c] Transitions from simple stripes 

 to ocellated stripes of the Tiger, as seen in Figs. 22 

 and 23. 



a> 



Tiger skin of Fig. 23. I do not think that these are enlarged 

 and spindle-shaped Leopard rosettes, although in Fig. 59, No. 5, 

 I have given one which has turned into a beaked ocellus. I 

 think that the Tiger marks in question have a different origin. 

 Tiger stripes are sometimes parallel throughout their whole length, 

 as seen in Fig. 24 ; but at other times the stripes are shifted 

 so as to make one commence about the middle of the other, 

 as in the lumbar region of Fig. 21. By approximation and 

 partial fusion, two stripes thus shifted would make a spindle- 



