and External Characters of the Hunting Leopard. 427 
That is the primary difference between the feet of Actnonyx 
and of other genera of Felide. 
There are other differences, however, of considerable 
interest. In the fore foot (figs. 4A, 5 B) the median web be- 
tween the third and fourth digits just reaches the proximal 
end of the digital pads and has a widely emarginate border. 
The lateral webs are much shallower and do not reach the 
proximal ends of the pads of the second and fifth digits, 
but the web tying together the fourth and fifth digits is 
considerably more deeply emarginate than that joining the 
second and third digits. . 
The pads are hard and smooth. The digital pads are 
strongly compressed and hard in front beneath tle base of 
the claws, and are upturned somewhat as in Hyena, and the 
narrow plantar pad is provided on each side of its highest 
portion posteriorly with’ a strong longitudinal ridge. 
The pollex is situated high above the plantar pad ; its pad 
is elliptical. The carpal pad is large, piriform, projecting, 
and furnished with a hard sharp point. 
The hind foot (fig. 4 B) is subsymmetrical, a little larger 
than the fore foot, and has slightly larger pads, and all the 
webs are shallower and more deeply emarginate. The pads 
are very similar in form to those of the fore foot, but the 
plantar pad, as is usually the case in Felide, is more 
symmetrical. 
In both the fore and hind feet the interdigital spaces are 
thickly clothed with long hairs. 
As the description and figures show, the feet of Acinonyx 
are very different from those of Panthera. They are equally 
different from the feet of several species referred to Felis, 
but by no means so different from them all, because within 
the limits of that genus, as at present understood, there is 
very considerable variation in the development of the claw- 
sheaths and interdigital webs. These I propose to deal with 
in a subsequent paper. At present it 1s sufficient to state 
that the feet of Acinonyw differ from the feet of all otber 
species of Felidz in the complete absence of integumental 
claw-sheaths, and that it is to this modification mainly that 
the so-called imperfect withdrawal of the claws is due. 
Mr. Lydekker was, I believe, expressing the prevalent 
Hist. i. p. 442, 1894) and the claws at their extremities are “always 
protruded from their sheaths” (‘Cats” in Lloyd’s Nat. Hist. p. 201, 
1896). Clearly, also, Flower did not know the facts of the case when 
he described the claws as being less completely retractile ‘‘ owing to the 
feebler development of the elastic ligament” (‘ Mammalia,’ p. 523, 1891). 
