THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
for safety and for most of its food, in getting which it is ex- 
tremely active and bloodthirsty. Dr. Woodhouse wrote of it 
that in Texas it often carried off the game which a hunter shot 
before he had time to enter the thicket and pick it up. Even 
the Mexican cactus jungles have no terror for it; for ocelot- 
skins are sometimes found to be fairly lined with cactus prickles 
lying flat and apparently causing no annoyance. Dampier, 
speaking of 
the Spanish 
Main, _re- 
cords that: 
“Here are 
great num- 
bers of them. 
-.. Buti 
have  wisht 
them farther 
cme Dak some k 
~, off when I 
_ have met 
THE OCELOT, OR LEOPARD Ga them in the 
; Woods; be- 
cause their Aspect appears so very stately and fierce.” 
The ocelot is about two and one half feet long in body, stands 
tall, and has a tail about twelve inches long. The color is 
grayish, mostly marked with large and small black-edged, 
fawn-colored spots, tending torun into oval or linear figures; 
but individuals vary interminably. ‘As if not content with 
differing from its fellows,’ Elliot exclaims, with the impa- 
tience of a puzzled classifier, ‘“‘an ocelot usually succeeds in 
exhibiting a distinct pattern on each of its sides!” But this 
irregularity makes the pelt, with its long, soft, pleasingly 
mottled fur, all the more desirable in the market, and vast 
numbers are annually collected by both red and white trappers. 
These cats are to be seen in most menageries, and have been 
102 
