CHAP. IV] COLORATION OF CAT TRIBE 119 



put on each, as they destroyed the stock. The jaguars 

 occasionally killed horses and full-grown cows, but not 

 bulls. The pumas killed the calves. The others killed 

 an occasional very young calf, but ordinarily only sheep, 

 little pigs, and chickens. There was one black jaguar- 

 skin ; melanism is much more common among jaguars 

 than pumas, although once Miller saw a black puma 

 that had been killed by Indians. The patterns of the 

 jaguar-skins, and even more of the ocelot-skins, showed 

 wide variation, no two being alike. The pumas were 

 for the most part bright red, but some were reddish- 

 grey, there being much the same dichromatism that I 

 found among the Colorado kinsfolk. The jaguarundis 

 were dark brownish-grey. All these animals — ^the 

 spotted jaguars and ocelots, the monochrome black 

 jaguars, red pumas, and dark grey jaguarundis — were 

 killed in the same locality, with the same environment. 

 A glance at the skins and a moment's serious thought 

 would have been enough to show any sincere thinker 

 that in these cats the coloration pattern, whether con- 

 cealing or revealing, is of no consequence one way or 

 the other as a survival factor. The spotted patterns 

 conferred no benefit as compared with the nearly or 

 quite monochrome blacks, reds, and dark greys. The 

 bodily condition of the various beasts was equally good, 

 showing that their success in life — that is, their ability 

 to catch their prey — was unaffected by their several 

 colour schemes. Except white, there is no colour so 

 conspicuously advertising as black ; yet the black jaguar 

 had been a fine, well-fed, powerful beast. The spotted 

 patterns in the forests, and perhaps even in the marshes 

 which the jaguars so frequently traversed, are probably 

 a shade less conspicuous than the monochrome red and 

 grey, but the puma and jaguarundi are just as hard to 



