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Show 630 MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE [DeC. 6, Spotted Cats ; no less than 6 specimens of F. rubiginosa, all but of which are from Ceylon, and the remaining specimen from Nel-lore in Southern India; and 42 skins of F. bengalensis and its allies. In going through the latter, whilst I have been struck by the great variety exhibited, I have been unable to trace a single character, external or cranial, by which the various races can be distinguished. There are doubtless several races, and except that I cannot see how F. jerdoni is to be separated, even as a variety, from F. javanensis of Horsfield, those accepted as kinds by Prof. Mivart are fairly recognizable. There is perhaps one to be added, the true wagati of Sir W . Elliot, not the form that was (I believe erroneously) described under that name by Dr. Gray. The variation in dimensions is not nearly so great as in the Leopard, and that in the markings is less than in the Ocelot. Accepting, then, the view that all the forms of Leopard-cat are varieties of one species, which, for reasons to be assigned presently, must be called F. bengalensis, tbe next question for determination is whether the Cat called F. jerdoni by Blyth is a distinct form, as it has been considered by Blyth and Mivart, whether, as Jerdon suggested, it is a small race of F. bengalensis, or whether, as stated by Mr. D. G. Elliot, it is identical with a form of F. rubiginosa. F. jerdoni was founded by Blyth upon three specimens, as he writes (P. Z. S. 1863, p. 185):-" I first detected an adult male and a kitten of this species in the Museum at Madras, and find that there is an adult specimen also in the British Museum." There is now a second specimen in the British Museum, obtained from the East India Museum and labelled F. jerdoni in Mr. Blyth's handwriting. On the stand of the original specimen the name F. jerdoni has also been written by Mr. Blyth. The two specimens are precisely similar and that first in the Museum may be taken as the type of the species. The markings of this specimen, as already mentioned, are scarcely-distinguishable from those of Horsfield's type of F. javanensis. In both the characteristic points mentioned-the mairks in the interscapular^ region, and the spots on the tail-the two skins agree with F. bengalensis and not with F. rubiginosa. To complete the evidence, Mr. Thomas has had the skull of one of the skins of F. jerdoni extracted, and it proves to possess the anterior upper premolar and imperfect orbit of F. bengalensis. I have, therefore, not the least hesitation in assigning F. jerdoni as a variety to that species, and I believe it to be identical with the form commonly known as F. javanensis. The locality of neither specimen of F. jerdoni in the National Collection is known ; but, considering that so closely similar a form has been described from Java, whilst there is no evidence as to the derivation of the Madras Museum specimens, it is far from improbable that Mr. Blyth was mistaken in his supposition, and that these skins were really brought originally from Malacca or the neighbourhood. The next point for consideration is the oldest scientific name of the Leopard-cat. Blyth, as already remarked, used in 1863 ] the 1 Cat. M a m . A. S. p. 60; in P. Z. S. 1863, p. 184, he calls this cat F. bengalensis, Desmoulins, probably a slip for Desraarest. |