293 
LYNX RUFUS— VAR. MACULATUS.— Ho,rsfield and Vigors. 
Texan Lynx. 
PLATE XCII . — Female. — Winter pelage. 
L. rufo-grises., dorso saturatiore, corporis lateribus nieniberisc[ue externe 
bruneo-maculatis, gula,, corpore infra, membrisque internb albis, bruneo 
latius maculati auribus pencillatis. 
CHARACTERS. 
Brownish-gray on the upper surface, sides of body and outer surface 
of legs, with small brown spots ; under surface of body and inner surface 
of legs, white, broadly spotted with brown ; ears, pencilled. 
SYNONYMES. 
Fklis Maculatus. Horsfield and Vigors. 
“ “ Zoological Journal, vol. 4, p. 380. 
i‘ “ Reichenbach, Regnum Animale, vol. 1, p. 6, pi. 37. 
DESCRIPTION. 
In size, in shape, in its naked soles— in the form of the skull— the dispo- 
sition and character of its teeth, and in all its habits, this species is so 
much like the Bay Lynx, (L. rufus,) that were it not for the different shades 
of colour, and the peculiar markings of some parts of the body, no 
naturalist would have ventured to describe it as a new species. One of 
the characters given to this supposed species by its original describers is 
that of pencilled ears ; this character, however, exists also in the Bay 
Lynx ; in both cases these hairs drop out when the other hairs are shed 
in spring, and are not replaced till the following autumn. The same pe- 
culiarity exists in many of our American squirrels. There is, as in L. 
rufus, a short ruff under the throat of the male. The hair is of two 
kinds : the inner, fine, and the outer and longer, not very coarse, and the 
fur, although much shorter, is fully as fine as that of specimens of tlie 
Bay Lynx obtained in Pennsylvania and New- York. 
COLOUR. 
The hairs on the back are at their roots yellowish-white, gradually 
becoming light-yellow, which colour continues for three-fourths the length, 
when they are barred with brownish-black, then yellowish-brown, tipped 
with black ; on the sides, the hairs are tipped with white ; on the under 
