50 CARNIVORA. 



[The Caracal (Felis Caracal, Schreb.).] 

 Of the Shargoss 1 . 



This animal is about the size of a common fox. It is of the genus of 

 the cats. It comes nearest the lynx of any of this genus, more especially 

 in its ears, haying long hah' on its edges and tip. 



The stomach is very much as the lion's, having its vessels entering 

 the side rather than the small curve of the cavity. The duodenum 

 passes to the right, and then down the right, getting soon a mesentery, 

 which is thin ; and, when got to where this gut commonly passes behind 

 the root of the mesentery, it is only closely attached to its right edge, 

 and then passes down along its right edge, then upon the left edge of 

 the same membrane : when got pretty high, it terminates in the colon 

 and caecum. Although this was the position of these intestines, yet the 

 mesentery admitted easily of being turned, so that the duodenum could 

 be easily made to pass to the left behind the root of the mesentery, 

 which turned the caecum forwards and more to the right. The caecum 

 is short, pointed at its termination, or by what might be called its 

 beginning : it is nearly of the shape of the lion's. The colon is larger 

 than the other intestines ; passes almost directly down the left side to 

 the pelvis. It is attached to the left side of the loins by a broad meso- 

 colon. The whole length of the small intestines is only one length and 

 two-thirds of the animal from the anus to the forehead ; and the colon 

 is two -thirds of the same length. 



The liver is divided into five lobes, besides the lobulus Spigelii ; the 

 middle lobe having the gall-bladder attached to it. The pancreas lies 

 in the curve of the duodenum, and also passes across, towards the left, 

 in the posterior fold of the epiploon, &c, to near the spleen. The spleen 

 is long and small, and is placed in the left of the mesentery. The 

 kidneys are very prominent, owing to the cavity of the belly being 

 narrow. The veins run on the surface. The parts of generation as in 

 tbe rest of the tribe. 



In a cat that I had from the Tower of a brownish dun, and was 

 something like the shargoss ; for it had long hair on the tip of the ears. 

 The ears were rather longer than common. This animal was somewhat 

 longer than a common cat, and its anatomy was entirely like that of the 

 cat, viz. the os hyoides higher than in the lion-kind, and attached to 

 the head by bones. 



1 [' Siyah-gush ' or ' Black-ears,' Cliarlestoni Exercitationes de differentiis et 

 norninibus animalium, fol. Oxon, 1677, p. 21. Home refers his abstract from 

 Hunter's notes to the " Shargoss," (Comp. Anat. i. p. 438) ; and, as usual, without 

 an attempt to determine the species so named.] 



