182 MR. E. BLYTH ON THE ASIATIC [May 26, 



its being a mixed race produced between the Lion and the female 

 Pard. 



Hab. All Africa ; Syria ; Arabia ; Mesopotamia ; Persia ; West 

 and South India; Ceylon (auct. Baker*). 



The rest of the Asiatic Cats may be divided into, the Pardine 

 series (inclusive of the Lion and Tiger), with more robust form of 

 skeleton, and comparatively rounded and obtuse ear-conch ; and the 

 Lyncine series (inclusive of the Domestic Cat), with constantly a 

 more slender form of skeleton, and larger and more pointed ear- 

 conch, which, in general, is more or less tufted. 



Pardine series. 



2. FeLIS LEO, L. 



Leo barbarus, senegalensis, gambianus, capensis, asiaticus, et 

 yoojerattensis auctorum. 



Varies much in shade of hue and development of mane, and of 

 hair along the flanks, in the male sex — soniC individuals (both in 

 x\sia and Africa) being permanently maneless, or comparatively sof, 

 though it does not appear that these anywhere constitute a distinct 

 and established race, any more than do occasional beardless indi- 

 viduals among the ordinarily bearded races of humankind. 



Hab. South Asia and Africa, and formerly (within historic times) 

 the south-east of Europe. Within the present century, distributed 

 over much of Central, West, and North-west India ; but now con- 

 fined in that country to the peninsula of Guzrat, unless a last rem- 

 nant still maintains a lingering existence in the jungles bordering the 

 Sind River in Bundelkund, which I now consider doubtful. East- 

 ward of the north-west provinces of the Bengal Presidency, the Lion 

 has not been observed in any part of Asia. 



3. FeLIS TIGRIS, L. 



Hab. Peculiar to Asia, extending westward as far as Mount 

 Ararat. A few are annually killed in Turkish Georgia. More nu- 

 merous in the Elburz Mountains, south of the Caspian (the ancient 

 Hyrcania). North of the Hindu Kosh, Tigers occur in Bokhara, 

 and proved troublesome to the Russian Surveying Expedition on the 

 shores of the Aral in midwinter. They are also found on the banks 

 of the Irtisch, and in the Altai region ; and thence eastward to 

 Amur-land, or Amuria (where very destructive to cattle), and round 

 by China and Indo-China to India, southward of the Himalayas ; 

 but the species does not extend into Ceylon. It inhabits the Ma- 

 layan peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and Bali, but is not met with in 

 Borneo, neither does it occur in the great Tibetan region of high 

 Central Asia. 



* ' Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon,' by S. W. Baker (1855), p. 118. This 

 author clearly distinguishes between the Chita and the Pard. 



t Vide Layard's ' Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon,' p. 487 ; 

 also Earth's ' Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa,' i. p. 482 ; 

 v. pp. 97, 270. 



