CAT KIND. 4-31 



no doubt be four feet long, as well as the two for- 

 mer. From hence, therefore, we may conclude, 

 that the size in these animals is not sufficient to 

 make a distinction among them ; and that those 

 who called them all three by the indiscriminate 

 names of the leopard and the panther, if not right, 

 were at least excusable. Of those which are now 

 to be seen in the Tower, the jaguar, or the Ame- 

 rican panther, is rather the largest of the three, 

 and is by no means the contemptible animal which 

 M. Buffon describes it to be ; the leopard is the 

 least of them, and has by some travellers been 

 supposed to be an animal produced between the 

 panther and the ounce, an animal which resem- 

 bles, but is less than any of the former. These 

 three animals we may therefore rank together, as 

 they agree pretty nearly in their robe, their size, 

 their dispositions, and their ferocity. 



We come next to an animal confessedly diffe- 

 rent from any of the former, being much smaller, 

 and its colour more inclining to white. Its name, 

 however, in our language, has caused no small 

 confusion. It has been generally called by fo- 

 reigners the Onza, or the Ounce, and this name 

 some of our own writers have thought proper to 

 give it ; but others of them, and these the most 

 celebrated, such as Willoughby, have given this 

 name to a different animal, with a short tail, and 

 known to the ancients and moderns by the name 

 of the Lynx. I confess myself at a loss in this 

 case whom to follow ; the alteration of names 

 should be always made with great caution, and 

 never but in cases of necessity. If we follow Wil. 



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