The tiger has a vast geographical range, extending from the humid jungles 

 of Sumatra to the snowy mountains and plateaux of northern China and 

 Siberia; and like most widely distributed beasts and birds, it has developed 

 several regional races, differing mainly in superficial characters. As the 

 Ounce or Snow Leopard differs from the true leopard type in coloration, 

 so, to some degree, does the North Asian mountain tiger differ from the jungle 

 tigers of the South. Its ground-color is paler — sometimes almost ashen-white 

 — and the stripes are scantier and more broken. These differences correspond 

 to those of the beasts' habitats — the northern tiger living amid rocks and 

 sometimes snow, in regions where tall upright stalks of vegetation are com- 

 paratively uncharacteristic features of the landscape. Thus, in almost all 

 cases, can one trace an apparent raison d'etre of color- and pattern-differ- 

 ences among nearly allied animals. There are a few cases more baffling, but 

 the seeming obscurity of these doubtless depends on our ignorance of many 

 fine points of difference or affinity in the beasts' life histories. Some animals, 

 for instance, seem to have a superlatively elaborate obliterative equipment, 

 while other closely allied species with nearly similar habits, living in the same 

 regions, are patterned much more simply. This is the case with the two 

 'harlequin' zebras and their relative the scantily half-striped Quagga. As 

 the Quagga was banded only on its fore quarters, so the Thylacine, or Tas- 

 manian Wolf, is banded only on its hind. Another Australian marsupial, 

 the little ant-eating Myrmecobius jasciatus, is brilliantly zebra-banded from 

 its shoulders to its tail. But among all the beasts that bear more fragmentary 

 vertically-secant patterns, the African antelopes are probably the most note- 

 worthy. Many antelopes of that continent, indeed, are almost or quite un- 

 marked — smooth brown or gray, obliteratively shaded, with the regulation 

 white or very pale-tinted bellies. But others are brightly, if somewhat scant- 

 ily, striped, and sometimes spotted, on the back and sides and legs, with white 

 and black — especially white. The most amply and regularly banded of these 

 is the Koodoo (Strepsiceros kudu), which has many vertical white stripes on a 

 dark-brown ground. This beast, as its markings would suggest, is an inhab- 



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