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Show 1867.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON THE FELIDAE. 399 caligata, /3, Fischer, Synopsis, p. 208 (from F. Cuvier's figure), is only a melanism. The largest Cape specimeii measures, body and head 30, tail 15 inches. Most of the specimens of Felis caligata from Africa, like Felis domestica, F. indica, and F. torquata and many other species, have the hinder part of the feet black; but this is not a permanent character ; for some of the smaller paler specimens of F. caligata have the hind feet paler than the back of the animal, and some of these have the heels more or less brown or blackish on the outer edges. In the British Museum there is a specimen of Felis domestica that was collected, by Mr. Darwin, wild in the woods at Maldanado, mentioned in the 'Voyage of the Beagle,' M a m . p. 20. It shows how nearly the Domestic Cat is to the above species: it chiefly differs from F. caligata in the tail being more slender and tapering, the colours more intense and defined, and in the throat being pure white. It is dark grey, grizzled with black streaks and spots; the streaks on the legs are wide, those of the fore legs more or less confluent. The tail is grey for two-thirds of its length, with black rings, the hinder one being broadest; the hinder third of the tail is black, with a small pure-white tip. The stripes on the loins are straight and parallel, not subspiral as in the Tabby Cats. The cheek-streaks are black, the lower one indistinct and interrupted. The toes are white. The smaller Spotted Cats of the warmer parts of Asia have all been regarded as one species by Mr. Blyth, following in the wake of Temminck; but it is to be observed that the latter naturalist only had the specimens from Java and Sumatra to examine. Perhaps if he had had in his museum specimens from Nepal, Bhootan, China, and the various districts of continental India, he would not have regarded them as belonging to the same species, as he did those from Java and Sumatra. They, no doubt, are very similar, and we know that the Spotted Cats, as the Leopard, the Jaguar, the Ocelots, and the Kuichua, of Brazil are very variable; but then in a large series of these specimens the varieties pass into each other, and the countries where the different varieties come from are contiguous, and different varieties come from the same locality. Now that is not the case with the small Spotted Cats of India; and until we have a series sufficiently large to show how the species do pass into each other, I think it is safer to regard them as valid. Some of the smaller-sized Spotted Asiatic Cats have a long head, with an elongated skull, and complete bony orbits. The skulls are longest and the orbits more developed in the Felis viverrina of Bennett and the Felis planiceps of Vigors and Horsfield. But, besides these, Felis rubiginosa of I. Geoffroy, in Belanger's 'Voyage,' and the Cat which I described under the name of Leopardus ellioti in the 'Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.' for 1837 (x. p. 260) have a rather elongated skull and complete orbits, though Mr. Blyth regards F. ellioti as only a variety of his F. bengalensis. Of the small-sized Spotted Asiatic Cats, which have an ovate |