THE CARACAL. 
Felis Caracal. 
Plates X. & XI. 
The Caracal, although closely allied to the Lynxes, presents a well-marked form in the family of Felidce. 
Dr. Gray has proposed to use, as its generic appellation, the old specific name, and has thus been obliged to 
replace it by a new one. The species accordingly appears in his catalogue of the Mammalia in the British 
Museum as Caracal melanotis, but the separation has not been countenanced by other writers. 
The geographical distribution of this Cat is extremely wide; it is found throughout Africa, and extends 
over Western Asia into India, though presenting several well-marked varieties in size and coloring. The 
ordinary tone of the pelage is more or less intensely rufous, and is well represented in Plate x., and in the 
figures in the back-ground of Plate xi., which illustrate the usual type of coloration of this species. The 
principal figure in Plate xi. is that of a very fine Nubian Caracal, which was received by the Society from 
the Hon. C. A. Murray, when acting as Her Majesty’s Agent and Consul-General in Egypt. This animal, 
as will be observed, was stronger in form and more grey in coloring, and was further remarkable for its short 
ears. It cannot, however, be considered to have been more than a variety of the Felis caracal. 
The Caracal is generally supposed to have been the true Lynx of Aristotle and the ancients, 
concerning which extraordinary fables were narrated, but this appellation was transferred by Linnaeus and 
his successors to the animal now commonly known by that name, and the present species, was called Felis 
caracal, from its Turkish name of Karakalach or Black-ears. 
The Caracal, although excessively irritable in the confinement of a menagerie, is said to exhibit, under 
favorable circumstances, as considerable an aptitude for training as the Cheetah. Temminck states in his 
monograph of the genus Felis, that the Caracal habitually hunts its prey in packs, like the Wild Dogs and the 
Lycaon; and this statement is borne out by a communication made to the late D. W. Mitchell, Esq., that the 
Guicowar of Baroda, in Western India, had some years since, a pack of forty trained Caracals, who were 
worked like hounds in pursuit of hares and other game, in his territory. 
