DEPEEDATIONS OF THE OCELOT. 197 



Of the Leopard-Cat {F. Pardalis) there are two 

 different colours, though this may be accidental ; but I 

 have frequently killed, and seen killed, ocelots with 

 black spots upon a dull white-coloured ground ; and 

 others with brown or brown-and-black spots on a dingy 

 w^hite or lead-coloured ground. The full-grown ocelot 

 does not stand so high as the Ijnx, but it is longer — the 

 body, tail, and all, often exceeding four feet in length. 

 It seeks the same kind of food as the lynx, though it 

 is scarcely so daring in its visits to the plantations. 

 Except in this latter characteristic, the habits of all the 

 wild cats are the same. 



In the South, in the dense cane-breaks which border 

 most of the southern rivers, the wild cats secure 

 their solitary retreats in w^hich to rear their young. 

 Protected by the tall canes, which intermatted, and 

 w^oven together by the briars and creeping plants, are 

 almost impenetrable to man or hound, they breed 

 seciu-ely ; so that, notwithstanding the settling of the 

 country, they remain seemingly as numerous as they 

 ever were. Leaving its young in some natural hole in 

 the ground, or in some hollow tree, it steals forth at 

 early morn, or late at night, and mo\dng as silently as a 

 shadow over the dried leaves, or through the brittle 

 grass, which would rustle at the touch of anything less 

 careful, it seeks it prey. No nest on a tree is secure 

 from them — no burrow in the orround or hollow los^ 

 uninvaded. The sheepfold, when young lambs are in 

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