MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 135 



the larger relative size of hippolestes skulls is correct. But even if this is the 

 state of the case, size alone, without dental and cranial differences, such as 

 separate species in other of the Felida, does not warrant the continuance of 

 hippolestes as a species. As Dr. Merriam has not indicated such departures 

 in the skulls he examined, it is not likely they exist or that he would have 

 overlooked them. On the same basis, I am unable to note that he has made 

 a good specific case for any one of the North American forms named in his 

 paper. Therefore, as F. couguar is by priority to be made the type of the North 

 American puma group included in his Revision, and as all the members of 

 that group are (or were in the last 50 years) geographically connected by a 

 continuous distribution in the United States and Mexico, it behooves us, until 

 a more satisfactory series of specimens be studied, that the nomenclature of 

 ' these races should stand as I have placed them in the early part of this article. 



The following are the characters given by Merriam for Adirondack speci- 

 mens : " Size medium, head (apparently) disproportionately small for size 

 of body ; color, dull fulvous ; skull, smallest of the known species. Color : 

 * Body and legs of a uniform fulvous or tawny hue. Ears light colored within, 

 blackish behind. Belly pale reddish, or reddish-white. Face sometimes with 

 a uniform lighter tint than the general hue of the body.' De Kay. Skull 

 smaller and less massive than in any other North American species ; nasals 

 broader and blunter posteriorly than in hippolestes and aztecus, but very much 

 smaller and narrower than in coryi from Florida ; bullae smaller ; basioccipital 

 broader, teeth smaller and more slender, particularly the large upper pre- 

 molars (carnassial and pm ^.)." It is probable on zoo-geographical grounds 

 that not only do the Adirondack cougars average smaller than typical Pa. 

 specimens, but that if a series of the latter, showing by their sagittaal crest 

 development the great age of animal from which the skull was taken (as was 

 the case with some of the Roosevelt series of hippolestes}, were compared 

 with hippolestes, the differences, which Merriam qualifies by the term "ap- 

 parently," would largely fall to the ground. 



I have written without success to obtain a description of the Pa. panther in 

 State College museum. Its body measurements have been already given as 

 taken from the stuffed specimen. The lengths of Pa. cougars usually given 

 in historic accounts are generally overestimated, often grossly so. It will be 

 found, however, on comparing the more reliable accounts of the size of 

 United States cougars that the differences, while favoring the usual rule of 

 greatest size in north temperate latitudes, diminishing toward the Gulf and 

 Mexico, are not great, and that some of the largest panthers ever taken have 

 been killed in Pennsylvania and Louisiana (Red River, See Doughty's Cab- 

 inet, N. Hist., vol. 2). In the Roosevelt series from Colorado the average 

 total length of 3 males and 3 females, all adult, was 7 feet 2 inches, the largest 

 male being 8 feet long, the largest female 7 feet long. This large male was 

 fat and weighed 227 pounds. 



