a 



SPOTTED AND STRIPED MAMMALS 



33 



should be noted that on the shoulder of this Ocelot there is a 

 tendency to dissociation of the rosette-spots. 



Then in Fig. 19 {b) we have an Ocelot in which the same 

 character is intensified and further modified, the enclosed spaces 

 being of a different colour from either the rings or the general 

 ground-colour. 



In the Natural History Museum there are some Ocelots which 

 show a further coalescence of the rosettes into more perfect longi- 



av 



(L 



((r 



^ 



o ^ 



o <^ ^ 



^1 



o 



Fig. 20. — Diagrammatic sketch showing transformation of Ocelot rosettes into longitudinal 

 bands : — 



(a) Rosettes arranged in longitudinal rows. 

 \b) Their upper and lower segments fusing. 



(c) The rows of rosettes completely fused into bands of a brownish colour, margined with 



black. 



(d) A row of rosettes from the flank of a Leopard skin ; these might readily fuse into twin 



stripes, as seen in Fig. 24. 



tudinal bands, in which the traces of the Leopard rosettes are 



almost wholly obliterated ; and it would not be easy to conceive 



how they originated, without knowledge of other varieties of 



Ocelots which indicate the steps leading to the longitudinally 



banded Ocelot. 



In Fig. 20 I have endeavoured to give a rough sketch of the 



passage from the Jaguar rosettes to the longitudinal parti-coloured 



bands of certain Ocelots. 



C 



