ORDER CARNASSIER. 487 



Piso have taken their figures, and Buffon his name of Cou- 

 guar. It is deposited in the very curious collection made 

 under the eye of the celebrated John Maurice, Prince of Nas- 

 sau (commonly styled Prince Maurice), who commanded the 

 Dutch forces in Guiana in the seventeenth century, which 

 collection is now in the royal library at Berlin. The figure 

 is as here represented, with two names, Cuguacuarara, and 

 Cuguaguguarana, above ; and in the Prince's hand is 

 written, " sehrfurios, und nicht grosser als ein kleine katze? 

 very furious and not larger than a small Cat. This figure 

 is copied in oil in another book, with the same names, and 

 a note of Margrave, who, by some mistake, has con- 

 founded it with the South American Couguar, or Puma ; 

 and in examining the description, he has extracted the 

 word Couguar out of the Brazilian denomination. D'Azara, 

 who describes this animal, states that there is some uncer- 

 tainty as to its name; but he believes that this, as well as 

 his Yagouaroundi, is known by the name Eira. The name 

 Haira was also given to a species of Wild Cat sent to Buffon 

 from America. The original drawing whence the figure 

 was taken corresponds so exactly with D'Azara's animal, as 

 to leave no doubt of its identity ; while the note upon it ren- 

 ders it at least prudent to adopt the name of Puma, and 

 to drop that of Couguar, for the animal vulgarly known by 

 the name of the American Lion. 



We have also engraven the figure of a beautiful stuffed 

 Cat in the Museum of Erlangen, brought from South Ame- 

 rica by Count Hoffmansegg. It is almost two feet long, 

 and the tail ten or eleven inches. The hairs are extremely 

 soft, long, and silky. The ground colour is white, but the 

 animal is variously clouded with shades of brown and yel- 

 low. This seems to be the Spanish or Tortoiseshell Cat in a 

 wild state, or it may be the Pageros of d'Azara. 



The Common Cat is said to be originally from the forests 



