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Show 628 MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE [.DeC' °> ground-colour, in the size of the animal, and in the length of the together with modifications in the form of the skull, have been regarded as specific, and a great number of specific names have consequently been proposed for the forms found in those parts of the Oriental region throughout which this type of Cats ranges. By others these differences have been treated as insufficient to justify specific distinction, and it has been urged that such differences as exist are not constant. As typical of the first class, Dr. Gray and Dr. Fitzinger may he quoted, of the latter Mr. Blyth. Dr. Gray, in his latest work on the subject, the Catalogue of Carnivorous, Pachydermatous, and Edentate Mammalia in the British Museum (1869)1, enumerates as distinct F. minuta (syn. F. sumatrana) from Sumatra, F. javanensis from Java, F. nepalensis from "India," "perhaps a hybrid or domesticated," F. chinensis from China, F.pardinoides from "India," F. pardochroa from Nepal, and a variety from Tenasserim, F. tenasserimensis from " India, Tenasserim," F. jerdoni from " Indian peninsula, Madras," F. herschelii from India, "Zanzibar?" (sic), and F. wayati from "India." Of these the form termed F. pardinoides has, I believe, since been ascertained to have been derived, not from India, but from South America. Viverriceps ellioti from " Madras," however, appears to belong to the same type as F. bengalensis, and to have no relation to either of the three very diverse forms, F. viverrina, F. planiceps, and F. rubiginosa, that are, on what principle it is difficult to conceive, associated together to form the genus Viverriceps. T wo other names formerly given by Dr. Gray, Leopardus horsfieldii2 from the Himalayas, and L. reevesii3 from China, are omitted from the Catalogue ; both were probably given to forms of the " Leopard-cat." Mr. Blyth, whose latest publication 4 on the subject was considerably earlier in date than either Dr. Gray's or Dr. Fitzinger's, classed all the various Asiatic Spotted Cats to which the names above enumerated had been given by Horsfield, Temminck, Hodgson, Gray, and others, as forms of F. bengalensis, Desmoulins. He, however, named a supposed distinct species, F. jerdoni, separating it on account of its smaller size, although it was very similar in its markings. In the same writer's ' Catalogue of the Mammals and Birds of Burma,' published 5 after his death in 1875, the name of F. undata, Desmarest, was adopted for the Leopard-cat. 1 A considerable proportion of this work, as is well known, was reprinted from papers published in the Society's Proceedings for 1864, 1865, 1867 and 1868. 2 Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. x. p. 260 (1842). 3 Cat. M a m m . B. M . 1843, p. 44. P. Z. S. 1863, p. 184. The only apparent difference between the views there expressed and those published in the same author's Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum Asiatic Society, p. 60, published in the same year, 1863, but written a year or two previously, is that F. jerdoni is proposed as a distinct species in the first-mentioned paper only. 5 J. A. S. B. xliv. pt. 2, extra number, p. 27. |