178 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: ZOOLOGY. 



two color phases independent of season. One of these is usually redder 

 than the other. Thus at any time of the year the animal of the Puget 

 Sound region [F. olynipns) may be 'red' or 'brown' — both of these 

 terms, it must be understood, giving an exaggerated idea of the real color 

 and of the difference between the two. On Vancouver Island, according 

 to John Fanin, Curator of the Provincial Museum at Victoria, the brown 

 pelage is the common one ; the red pelage rather rare. On the mainland 

 the red is more common. In the case of the Rocky Mountain species 

 [hippolestes], according to Roosevelt [Scribner's Magazine, October, 1901, 

 p. 435], the colors designated as 'red' and 'blue' are equally divided, 

 six of each being recorded among the twelve animals killed by him in 

 mid-winter in Colorado." [L. c, p. 580, and table, p. 587.) 



A wide range of color variation is probably present throughout the 

 Puma group, to such an extent that characters based on coloration have 

 very little importance ; yet, in the present scarcity of material, authors are 

 apt to lay more or less stress on such features. Thus Dr. Merriam 

 describes his Felis puma patagoiiica, from the eastern base of the Andes, 

 Patagonia, as being gray, with the black on the back of the ears nearly 

 obsolete, while Mr. Thomas, in describing his Felis concolor pearsoni, based 

 on a skin from Santa Cruz, coast of Patagonia, gives the coloration as ful- 

 vous or clay color, with the black on the back of the ears obsolete. 



In the three specimens collected by Mr. Barnum Brown, described 

 above, the black on the back of the ears is nearly obsolete in one, fairly 

 distinct in another, and very strongly developed in the young specimen 

 in spotted coat, all of these specimens being from the same locality. It 

 would thus appear that the pattern of marking on the ear is also a variable 

 feature, and in all probability subject to much seasonal variation. 



Mr. Prichard (/. c, p. 253) appears to believe that Puma pearsoni is 



especially distinguished from P. pafagouicahy its red color ("reddish-fawn 



instead of silver-gray"); but his personal knowledge of it appears to be 



confined to the type specimen, taken by him on the coast near Santa 



Cruz. 



Genus ONCOIDES Severtzow. 



FeHs Linn., part, and in part of most authors. 



Leopardus Gray, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., X, Dec. 1842, 260, part; also 



Gray, 1843, 1867 and 1868, part, and of several subsequent authors 



who have employed the name. 



