122 Mr. R. I. Pocock on the 



for instance, one had three bristles to each tuft, the other 

 only one — a difference I susjiect to be due to moulting. 

 On the other hand, in species Avith loufj hair or copious 

 ■whiskers on the cheek, like Paiithej-a tiyris and Felis lynx, 

 these vibrissa? are not ahvays easy to find. In an exanii)le 

 of the Tibetan lynx, F. lynx isnbeUina, for instance, each of 

 the gcnal tufts was represented by a single bristle mixed up 

 vith the fringe on the cheek. Similarly, in examples of 

 F. sylvestris and of F. ocreata, recently examined, each 

 the genal tufts was represented by a single bristle. 



The Feet. 



In the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History ' (8) 

 xviii. pp. 419-429 (1916), in a paper dealing with the 

 external characters of the hunting leopard or cheetah 

 {Acinonyx jubafiis), I described the feet of that Feline, and 

 compared them with those of the common leopard (Panihera 

 pardus) to show the differences between them and to illus- 

 trate the range of structural variation in the feet within 

 the limits of the family Felidse. I stated that the feet 

 of Acinonyx are distinguished from those of all the other 

 members of that family by the complete absence of cuta- 

 neous sheaths for guarding the claws; but added that the 

 feet of the typical Felidpe by no means ahvays conform to 

 the Pantherine type in the degree of development of these 

 sheaths. In the following pages I have described and 

 figured the feet * of several species from the Old World 

 and the New to show how they differ from each other. 

 Since the selection is tolerably wide, it does not appear to 

 me probable that any species of cat exists with feet differing 

 in any important respect from all of those here discussed ; 

 but a few interesting species, like F. mamd, pajeros, and 

 planiceps, still remain to be done. 



Since in their main characters the feet here described 

 agree with those of Fonthera pardus^ it is needless to repeat 

 what was said on that head in the paper above quoted f. 



* The drawings have heen taken from measured feet with the hairs 

 surrounding the pads cut short, and the feet are represented as naked 

 ■witli the digits spread, the axes of digits 2 and 5 being approximately at 

 right angles. 



t Apart from the forms assigned to Panthera, a genus which I have 

 elsewhere dehued, all the species are provisionally referred to the genus 

 Felii. 



