Dr. J. E. Gray on the Species of FeKne Animals. 351 XLII. — List oftJie Species of Feline Animals (Felidse). By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. &c. It will perhaps facilitate the study of the species of Feline animals to give a list of the sixty species which are contained in the British Museum, and of the two or three well-established species that are not in the Collection, but which we hope soon to acquire. The species of Cats in the accompanying list are in every case made out by the comparison of a series of specimens of each species, which has been carefully made ; and they are arranged in the Museum side by side, so that any person can verify for himself the authority for the species, which is a very different thing from the comparison of figures or descriptions. I do not undertake to demonstrate that every kind of cat in the list is a distinct species ; but I consider that they are so as far as the specimens in our collection allow us to judge. If, however, other specimens should show that what I have regarded as species are only varieties, the variations will exist between two specimens put in the same division and probably placed next to each other. Thus I will not undertake to say that all the species of Ocelots are distinct and permanent species ; but they are all arranged together, and it is the same with some other groups. Since my revision of the Cats was published, Messrs. Blyth, Jerdon, Elliot, and others of the same school of naturalists have proposed to regard several of the specimens on which I had established species as only variations of other species. I have carefully reexamined all these specimens, and com-pared the animals and their skulls. The naturalists above re-ferred to seem to have overlooked the characters afforded by the latter, and I have not generally found their observations well founded. The synonymy of the Cats is exceedingly confused ; indeed it would look as if several authors had made their synonyma entirely from memory, without the comparison of specimens. The figures in Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and Cuvier's 'â– Histoire Naturelle des Mammiferes ' are generally very good, except in the tail being frequently made too long for the animal — as I have observed on a former occasion, longer than it is said to be in the descriptions that accompany the plates, as Felis cJiaus for example, where the length of the tail makes the figure more resemble tlie steppe-cat of Bokhara {Chaus caii-datus) than the common jungle-cat of India, which it is named on the plate. As an instance of inaccuracy in quotation one may cite the 25*
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