KTTNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIBNS HANDLINGAR. BAND 48. N:0 5. 79 



A skin of a Leopard from Kismayu sent home by Rev. Mr. Engdahl is com- 

 paratively small and has small spots. 



In a similar way as the spots are different in size in Leopards from the same 

 country the ground colour as well is found to be very variable. In a skin from 

 Machakos the ground colour of the back is (perhaps a little more rufous than) »tan» 

 (Rep. des Couleurs 317,i) fading gradually down to >yellowish buff» (Rep. des Cou- 

 leurs 310,2) on the lower flanks while the centre of the rosettes even there is »bistre» 

 (Rep. des Couleurs 328, i). In another skin of a similal? pattern, and which looks 

 quite fresh (not faded), also from Brit. East Africa and probably from no distant 

 locality as it also has been sent home by Mr. Lindblom, the darkest ground colour 

 of the back is syellowish buff» (Rep. des Couleurs 310,2) fading to creamy white on 

 the flanks where the centre of the rosettes is pale »yellowish buff* (Rep. des Couleurs 

 310,1). The difference between these two skins is thus very striking, and the indi- 

 vidual variation very great. 



The four skins from' Eritrea are less rufous than the most bright-coloured from 

 British East Africa but not so pale as the palest from there. 



As it is difficult to decide whether there is one or two varieties of Leopards 

 in East Africa it is uncertain what name is to be applied to East African Leopards. 

 Following Matsohie I have once called^ a Leopard from Kilimanjaro "Felis pardus 

 nimr (Hbmpr. & Ehretstb.)*. This was, however, a mistake as the name ■^nimr^ ori- 

 ginally had been given to a much paler animal which is said to have been 



»flavescente albida, dorso medio levius fulvescente, ocellis e macularum nigrarum 

 quaternarum quinarumve annulis in medio tantum corpore notata, areolis annulorum 



fulvescentibus» — . The coloured plate in Hempricht & Ehrenberg's sSymbolse 



Physicse* show a Leopard »Ex Arabia feHcis and it is much paler even than the 

 palest specimens from Eritrea and the palest from East Africa. I suppose therefore 

 that the name »nimr» cannot be used for any African Leopard. 



In the year 1900 O. Neumann created a new name ^ Felis leopardus suahelicusi> ,^ 

 because »die grossgefleckte ostafrikanische Form des Leoparden hatte bisher noch 

 keinen Namen»(!). Not a single word of description is added, and such a proceeding 

 of naming an animal without any diagnose ought to be repudiated. The difficulty 

 of finding out what this ^F. I. suaheUcus» is meant to be is the greater as no certain 

 type locality is indicated but four different places are enumerated so widely distant 

 as Tanga and Uganda. It is thus no wonder that Lydekkee when figuring' the 

 skin of a large-spotted Leopard from Uganda is quite uncertain whether it is iden- 

 tical with ^suaheUcus», or not. Lydekker's specimen proves to have an unusually 

 short tail. From Ruwenzori Camerano has described a large-spotted Leopard and 

 given it the name of F. p. ruwenzori. This one has a short tail, and if this cha- 

 racteristic proves constant Lydekker's specimen may be counted to this race. From 



1 Wiss. Ergebn. d. Schwed. Zool. Exp. Kilimandjaro-Meru 1905—1906 unter Leitung von Prof. Dr. 

 Yngve SjOstedt. 2. Mammals, p. 23. 



2 Zool. Jahrb. Abth. Syst., Bd. 13, Hft. 6, p. 551. 



3 Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1907, p. 784. 



