228 FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS 



United States, touching even the northern border, while 

 the Ocelot always kept well to the south, having once 

 been found in Arkansas and Louisiana, but now in 

 our limits has retreated to or beyond the Rio (Irande. 

 The Ocelot is a spotted beauty, plucky, and a real game 

 animal, with liis skin as varicolored and bright as a 

 Leopard's, one of our few richlj- colored ^I animals. 

 He is also, as it says on this picture, a ' spotted disas- 

 ter ' to birds and smaller beasts who venture in or 

 under the tree Avhere he chooses a branch for a divan 

 whereon to take his noontime rest. Mottles of light 

 and shadow playing upon the tree bark and nestling 

 in the moving leaA'es, help hide his ten sharp claws 

 sheathed between elastic foot-pads. His four cruel 

 dog teeth, covered by the tightly shut whiskered lips, 

 tell no tales of the Ijristle-covered tongue within, that 

 licks and licks the skin of its prey, until it is filed 

 away, and the bleeding flesh made ready for the meal. 



" \Mien he hunts by stalking, he prefers the dark 

 hours, his eyes shining like lanterns. In truth, the 

 (_)celot wears a coat of many colors, in which orange, 

 brown, and yellow blend and mingle as a groundwork 

 for tawny, black-edged sj^ots, stripes and streaks whicli 

 cover two and a half feet of body and fifteen inches of 

 tail. In habits, he is more of a tree cat than the others ; 

 he too, like them, is no carrion eater, only feeding upon 

 ju'ey that he catches himself. See the crouching figure 

 with ears well up, back feet braced, and tail lashing. 

 It is in the exact position of a House Cat watching a 

 Mouse. In a moment, if the birds pass mider the 

 tree, there will be a spring, a flutter, and a mass of 

 feathers borne to the ground, and a meal for the Ocelot. 



