1877.] MR. D. G. ELLIOT ON FELIS TIGRINA. 705 



F. macroura, as its name implies, has for the most part relied 

 upon the length of its tail to establish its claim to a distinctive rank ; 

 and so far as I can discover, leaving aside some slight differences 

 of colour, F. mitis must be recognized by having a tail inter- 

 mediate in length between F. macroura and F. tigrina. Although 

 I have carefully examined and compared specimens of the alleged 

 species in most of the large collections in Europe and also in that of 

 the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, I had been utterly unable 

 to find any reliable character to distinguish them from each other. 

 On a recent visit to London (one of the chief objects of making 

 which was to further mvestigate this subject) in company with my 

 friend Mr. E. R. Alston, who was occupied with the Felidae in- 

 habiting Central America, I examined anew the entire collection of 

 these so-called three species, consisting of skins, mounted specimens, 

 and skulls, contained in the British Museum. These are, in all, 

 nineteen specimens, coming from various localities between Honduras 

 on the north, and Paraguay on the south. 



As the length of tail was a principal character, especially for 

 F. macroura, this member was our first consideration ; and it very 

 soon proved to be, as I had always found was the case, thoroughly 

 unreliable ; for the tails were of all possible lengths, irrespective of 

 locality, and if arranged in a series would exhibit a gradual progres- 

 sion from the shortest to the longest and most pretentious. The 

 next step was the arrangement of the spots or rings, mindful of Dr. 

 Gray's descriptions of rings distinct and rings indistinct. Both kinds 

 were found ; in fact a third style was discovered ; for, while some 

 had tails incompletely ringed, and others tails with some perfect rings, 

 others, again, had spotted tails without any tendency at all to form 

 any kind of ring. No two were exactly alike, even from the same 

 place, while others from far distant localities bore a more general 

 resemblance to each other than some that had the same habitat. 

 As to colour, one had but to choose the shades of buff or grey that 

 pleased him best ; for apparently all were represented, and it was 

 difficult to find the same hue on two individuals. 



The tails proving to be miserable failures in every way for specific 

 distinction, we next turned our attention to the bodies and heads, and 

 were at once met with the same difficulties ; for the animals had as 

 great a disregard for uniformity in the colour of their fur and in the 

 patterns of the markings on their bodies as they evidently had for 

 that on their tails. All hues of grey and buff were exhibited, every 

 shape and size of spots were there, some solidly black, others with 

 light centres and black edges, scattered about separately or coalescing 

 and forming stripes, but without regularity of pattern, and no two 

 examples exactly alike from any or all localities. It was very evident 

 that if there really did exist three species there must be some other 

 means to distinguish them ; for of all the characters that had been 

 given of the colour and style of markings, it was very evident that 

 none were of any value whatever ; and as a last resort we turned to 

 the skulls. 



Here, also, our efforts met with no better success ; for variations 



