184 MR. E. BL\TH ON THE ASIATIC [May 26, 



10. Felis viverrina, Bennett. 



F. viverriceps, Hodgson. 



F. bengalensis, apud Buchanan Hamilton. 



F. himalayana, Warwick, auct. Jardine, Nat. Libr. (?), nee Gray. 



F. celidogaster, Temm., auct. Gray.* 



Hab. India (with Ceylon) ; Burma (common in the Tenasserim 

 provinces). Found only in the lower valleys of the Himalaya. 

 Malacca and Formosa, apud Swiahoe, P. Z. S. 1862, p. 353. 



11. Felis bengalensis, Desmoulins. 



F. sumatrana et F.javanensis, Horsfield. 



F. minuta, Temminck. 



F. undulata, Schinz. 



F. nipalensis et F. pardichrous, Hodgson. 



F. wagati, EUiotf . 



heopurdus ellioti, chinensis, reevesii, et Chaus servalinus, Gray 

 (^rufous-tailed variety). 



F. nipalensis, Vigors and Horsfield (hybrid?, or Domestic Cat of 

 Nepal?!). 



* Brit. Mus. Catal., but not of Temminck (_1855), wlio recognizes a West- 

 African species as his F. celidogaster, to which he refers the figure assigned to 

 F. chalybeata in Griffith's English edition of Cuvier's ' Regne Animal,' vol. ii. pi. 2. 

 See ' Esquisses Zoologiques sur la cote de Guinee,' par M. Temminck, 1' partie, 

 les Mammiferes, p. 86. F. himalayana, Gray, is perhaps F. celidogaster, Temm., 



f This has been assigned to F. viverrina ; but it does not appear that Mr. 

 Walter Elliot ever obtained the latter, and he presented me with a living speci- 

 men of F. bengalensis as his F. wagati. 



X " The Domestic Cat is as common in Nepal as elsewhere, and has no pecu- 

 liarity worthy of note. Judging by its marks, I should conjecture that it is de- 

 rived from the F. nipalensis ; if so, it has lost by domestication the fine ground- 

 colour of that beautiful species." — Hodgson in Journ. As. Soc. B. i. p. 341. 



Pennant was assured that the male specimen originally described by him 

 " swam on board a ship at anchor oflf the coast of Bengal. After it was brought 

 to England, it coupled with the female cats, which twice produced young. I 

 saw," he remarks, " one of the ofl'spring, which was marked in the same manner 

 as the male parent; but the ground-colour was cinereous." (History of Qua- 

 drupeds, i. p. 293.) Various other wild species (both of the Pardine and Lyncine 

 series) interbreed more or less freely with the Domestic Cat in different countries. 



Mr. E. L. Layard (in his ' Catalogue of the South African Museum,' 1862) 

 notices, that " F. caffra intermingles freely with the domestic race which has been 

 imported by the European settlers, and the mixed progeny possesses all the fero- 

 city and bloodthirstiness of the wild parent." A hybrid of this kind is in the 

 British Museum Collection, as noticed by Dr. Gray (Catal. 1843, p. 45). 



Mr. Walter Elliot, formerly of the Madras Civil Service, assured me of the 

 occurrence of hybrids between the Domestic Cat and F. chaus, and also of simi- 

 lar hybrids with F. rubiginosa {vide Journ. As. Soc. B. xvii. pp. 247, 559). Dr. 

 D. Scott, of the late Bengal Army, and formerly of Hausi, assured me of the 

 occurrence there of hybrids with F. ornata, and that many of the Domestic Cats 

 of that part of India were undistinguishable from the wild F. ornata, as some of 

 those of the Scottish Highlands are from the European Wild Cat {vide Jardine, 

 Nat. Libr., Felince). I was assured by the late Dr. Kelaart that he had seen a 

 hybrid from F. viverrina in Ceylon. 



For some remarks on the Domestic Cats of India, vide Journ. As. Soc. B. xxv. 

 note to p. 443. The Chaus pulchella, Gray, appears to me to be only an Egyptian 

 variety of the Domestic Cat. 



