JUNGLE-CAT— CARACAL— LION 49 



particularly fond of high grass and sugar-plantations, while it is often seen in 

 the neighbourhood of villages, where it is said to pair with domesticated cats. 

 Like the latter, it breeds twice a year, each time giving birth to three or four 

 kittens. In length it is from 22 to 26 inches, the tail measuring only 10 or 11 

 inches, and the height at the shoulder is from 10 to 11 inches. Although the tips of 

 the ears carry a few long hairs, these do not form regular tufts, like those of the true 

 lynxes. The jungle-cat holds indeed an intermediate position between the latter 

 and the more typical cats. In colour it is chiefly sandy brown or greyish brown, 

 darker above and lighter below. The limbs are sometimes marked by dark 

 cross-stripes, and towards the end of the black-tipped tail there are black rings. 

 Occasionally a black, or melanistic, phase is met with. 



Like the jungle-cat, the caracal (F. caracal) is indigenous to both 



C3.r3.C3.! 



Asia and Africa ; and is distributed over the greater part of India, 

 where it is most abundant in the Punjab, Sind, Kach, and the north-west generally. 

 The caracal is a slender, long-legged lynx without whiskers, and with a tail about 

 one-third the length of the body. It is smaller than the European lynx, the length 

 of the head and body being between 26 and 30 inches, and the shoulder-height 

 16 to 18 inches. The caracal connects the true lynxes with the jungle-cat, just as it 

 is connected through the latter with the true cats. In general colour it varies on the 

 upper-parts between reddish grey and brownish red, the sides of the upper lip having 

 a blackish spot, while below the colour is lighter, or even white, sometimes with 

 indistinct reddish spots. The tail, which is of the same colour as the body, has a 

 black tip ; and the ears, which are white inside, are always black, or nearly so, 

 externally, with a terminal pencil of long black hairs. The caracal lives amid bushes 

 and high grass, and hunts gazelles, small deer, and hares, as well as birds, fre- 

 quently capturing the latter while on the wing by leaping high in the air, and 

 knocking them down with a blow of its paw. It is sometimes trained for the 

 chase, and in former times was kept in great numbers by Indian princes for 

 hunting purposes. 



The distributional area of the lion (F. led) includes the whole of 



Africa from Cape Colony to Algeria and Abyssinia, but this area has 

 many gaps, since in some districts the species has been exterminated, the greatest 

 of these gaps being the one separating the African area of the lion from its Asiatic- 

 habitat. In former, even historical, times, this gap was more or less filled up, for the 

 lion was found not only in Arabia and Syria but apparently also over a large part of 

 south-eastern Europe, as for instance Greece and Rumania. In prehistoric times 

 it was spread over Italy, Spain, Germany, France, and Great Britain. In all these 

 latter countries it may have been, at least partly, destroyed by change of climate, 

 but the lions of south-eastern Europe and south-western Asia were mostly exter- 

 minated by man. At the present day the lion is much more abundant in Africa 

 than in Asia ; sometimes it is seen south of the Euphrates, and it is still frequent 

 in the deltas of that river and the Tigris, fresh traces of these animals having been 

 noticed daily among the ruins during the excavations at Babylon. It also occurs 

 on the upper course of the Tigris, and its range extends from the swampy banks of 

 the Euphrates and Tigris to Kurdistan and the mountainous country south of 

 Shiraz. The Mesopotamian and Indian lion respectively represent distinct races. 



VOL. II. — 4 



