740 



A Monograph of the species of Lynx. By Edward Blyth, Curator 

 to the Asiatic Society. 



As the Lynxes are a group of Cats pre-eminently attached to frigid 

 and mountainous regions, it is remarkable that none has hitherto been 

 observed on the Himalaya, where the widely diffused Felis Chaus of 

 Guldenstadt (vel F. Kutas, Pearson, F. qffinis, Gray, and Lynchus 

 erythrotis, Hodgson,) appears to be their only representative, this 

 being rather a Lynx-like Cat than a true Lynx, though one of an 

 unbroken series of gradations passing from the domestic Cat group 

 into the present form, and which series is finally connected by F. 

 Caracal with the typical or northern Lynxes — the Caracal according 

 with the latter in wanting the small foremost upper false molar-tooth 

 which exists in all other known Cats, while it is deficient in the facial 

 ruff and mouchetures so characteristic of the animals under consider- 

 ation. 



That more than one species of this minor group inhabits the wooded 

 Elboorz chain stretching eastward from the southern extremity of the 

 Caspian, there is every reason to consider probable ; and " the Lynx"* 

 is included by Capt. Thos. Hutton in his enumeration of some of 

 the mammalia of Afghanistan, (Calc, Journ. Nat. Hist. I, 558,) in 

 which country " a large wild Cat, with a tendency to the Lyncean 

 tuft on the ears," (most probably the Chaus), is noticed by Dr. Griffith to 

 be met with about Olipore {Journ. As. Soc. X, 978). Mr. Hodgson has 

 obtained a species in Tibet {Ibid. XI, 276), which, from the dimen- 

 sions ascribed to one of his specimens, would seem to be F. cervaria ;\ an 

 animal chiefly found to the eastward of the Ural range, and rarely on the 

 Caucasus, but which is known in Persia (according to M. Menetries) by 

 the appellation Vaarchach. As I have had good opportunities of making 

 myself acquainted with the various species of this group, and it appears 

 to me that descriptions of them in this Journal will be of utility in 

 enabling observers to discriminate any they may meet with, I shall pro- 



* In orig. "three Lynx," a typographical error which, from the context, I read 

 as above. 



f Since writing the above, having seen Mr. Hodgson's coloured drawing of the 

 animal in question, I can pronounce it to be F. cervaria. 



