NOTE, 
93 
NOTE. 
The Black Variety of Felis chans .—On the 16th February 
this year a Sinhalese man belonging to the Yatiyantota district, 
who collects specimens for me, brought in what appeared at 
first sight to be a domesticated cat of a pure black colour; 
but the man vigorously protested that not only was this a 
jungle cat, but other cats of the same colour had been seen 
before, and it was known that there was a black jungle cat. 
Upon closer examination I saw at once that it differed from an 
ordinary house cat, while I found that it resembled the jungle 
cat {Felis chaus ) in the following important points(1) Pupil 
round; (2) ears long, with a small tuft of longish hairs inside 
the ear, about half way down ; (3) tail short ; (4) skull broad ; 
(5) the wavy lines noticeable on the sides of some specimens 
of Felis chaus being just traceable. 
On looking up Felis chaus in “ Blanford’s Mammalia ” Faun. Br. 
Ind. pp. 86, 87, I found that a black variety had been sometimes 
found in India, so I lost no time in curing the skin, which as 
soon as it was ready I sent down with the skull to the Colombo 
Museum to Dr. Willey, who very kindly examined it and replied 
as follows :— 
“ There seems no doubt that it is a black specimen (melanic 
variety) of Felis chaus . The ear tufts seem to have been 
lost, but the length of the ears and the characters of skull and 
teeth stamp it as F. chaus . I suppose there is no doubt of its 
having been genuinely wild here, 7.e., it is presum ally not an 
escapee.” 
The cat had been trapped and had not been long dead when it 
was brought to me. Its captor informed me that on the previous 
morning he found a jungle cock caught in a trap which had been 
set for mouse deer {Tragulus meminna ). The fowl had been 
half devoured by some animal; so, suspecting a cat, he reset the 
trap using the remains of the jungle fowl as the bait. The 
statements of the Sinhalese man about there being a black jungle 
cat cannot be relied on, but there is not the slightest chance 
of the animal having been imported here, nor is there any doubt 
as to its having been born in Ceylon; but there remains the 
chance of its being the result of a cross between a domesticated 
