10 STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS 



irregular ring of small black spots with an enclosed space. This 

 space may be either of the same colour as the general ground of 

 the skin, or of a darker shade, and sometimes of a different hue. 

 Moreover, on the Jaguar skin (Fig. 4) there are many rosettes which 

 have one or more small black specks in the middle of the enclosed 

 space, which in Leopards proper seem to be obliterated, owing 

 perhaps to a contraction of the entire rosette. 



In the Tring Museum there is a fine specimen of a Jaguar. On 

 its flank are very large polygonal rosettes, with from one to six 

 specks in the enclosed space. 



If any one will take the trouble to look over the Leopard skins 

 in the windows of the London furriers, he will be at once convinced 

 that the rosettes even in the same skin vary immensely ; ^ and if 

 different skins are compared it will be found that, although the 

 general mapping may be similar, the detail shows that there are 

 scarcely two skins alike. Indeed, the skins are as different as the 

 faces one sees among the people in the crowded streets of London. 

 It seems astonishing that, among the thousands of faces one sees, 

 there should not be two alike. It is the same with the coloration 

 of most animals. 



Then, if we examine the skins of Mammals which are sup- 

 posed to be of different species, although of the same genus, we 

 find astonishing modifications of what I consider the typical 

 rosettes of the Jaguar. 



A very interesting monograph of the Felidce by D. G. Elliot 

 shows, by means of the beautifully coloured plates, not only the 

 modifications of rosettes, but all manner of intermediate stages 

 up to total obliteration of all markings. The transitions from 

 rosettes to spots and stripes can there be readily seen. 



^ A variety of Jaguar from Mexico is characterised by the distance at which the small 

 spots which ordinarily constitute the rings are placed from one another, so that complete 

 rings or rosettes of spots only occasionally occur. Roy. Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 395. 



