i, SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6] 



Characters- Felis pardus fords is a large race which attains the 

 maximum size, the skull exceeding in length that of any other 

 African or Asiatic race. The skull is further distinguishable by its 

 narrowness, the small size of the tympanic bullae and the absence of 

 the first upper premolar. Body size large, with long pelage, dark 

 coloration, and numerous small resetted spots, the central color of 

 which it not differentiated in shade from the general -round color. 

 Fortis in color mo>t resembles suahilica, but is easily distinguishable 

 by the darker -round color which is uniform in shade with the central 

 portion of the rosetted spots. Male skulls of suahilica differ in their 

 much smaller size, the largest being seven-eighths of an inch less in 

 length than the type oi fortis, decidedly larger bullae, and presence 

 of a well developed first upper premolar. The bullae in fortis do not 

 rise to the level of the mastoid process, the skull when placed on a 

 level resting upon the bullae, hut in suahilica they extend well beyond 

 the mastoid. 



Coloration of the type. — Ground color on median line of hack 

 cinnamon-brown, paling on sides to ochraceous-tawny, and on under- 

 pays and inside of limbs to whitish or pale huff. The rosetted spots 

 on the back are small and hroken into two or three sections, the cen- 

 tral portion being uniform in color with the cinnamon-hrown -round 

 color ; on the sides of the body the central portion is darker than the 

 ground color as usual among- leopards. The underparts, legs, head, 

 and basal part of tail are marked by solid black spots. The terminal 

 portion of the tail is solid blackish with a narrow median whitish hand 

 on the underside. Ears tawny like the ground color of the head and 

 marked by a broad hand of black across the middle of the hack. 



Measurements.- — The type is without flesh measurements. The 

 skull measures : greatest length, 260 mm. ; condylo-basal length. 236 ; 

 zygomatic width, 157; interorhital width. 43; width across post- 

 orbital processes, y^,; post-orbital constriction, 37; nasals, JS^in; 

 length of upper carnasial,27 ; width of mesopterygoid fossa at suture, 

 20; condylo-basal length of mandible, 172. Skull old, the sphenoidal 

 and interparietal sutures fully anchylosed. The type is unique in 

 skull characters and large size among a series of 2^ leopards from 

 east equatorial Africa in the National Museum. 



FELIS PARDUS CHUI, new subspecies 

 Nile Leopard 



Type from ( iondokoro, Northern Uganda; adult male. Cat. No. 

 k>47(>4, IT. S. Nat. Mus. ; collected by Edmund Heller. Feb. 26, 1910 ; 

 original Xo. (153. 



