Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College Volume 40 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ...of this leopard is indicative of its high mountain habitat in Szechwan. Cabrera (1910, p. 426) attempts to show that Gray's name japonensis should replace fontanieri on the ground that Gray's specimen came probably from North China instead of Japan, a conclusion that may prove well founded; but the name is inapplicable since it was previously employed by Boddaert for a variety of the house cat. Felis Pardus Variegata (Wagner). In the Yangtze valley, at Changyanghsien, Hupeh, Mr. Zappey shot a fine adult male leopard, which is clearly a very different animal from fontanieri of the Szechwan highlands. Compared with our skins of the latter from Tachienlu it is larger and much richer in color, with more deeply black spots. The dorsal tawny areas are between ochraceous and orange-ochraceous paling to buff on the flanks. The spots are more sharply defined and of a deeper shining black. The hair, too, notwithstanding that this is a winter specimen killed February 2, 1909, is comparatively much shorter (26 mm. in length mid-dorsally between the shoulders as against about 40 in fontanieri) and without the woolly underfur of the latter. The black hairs are only very inconspicuously chocolate-colored at their extreme bases. The collector's measurements of this specimen in the flesh are: --total length, 2080; tail, 850; hind foot, 260; height at the shoulder, 610. The skull is large and heavily built and does not appear to differ remarkably in general proportions from that of fontanieri. It measures: --greatest length from occiput to front of incisors, 228; condylobasal length, 201; zygomatic breadth, 152; greatest breadth across supraorbital processes, 73; greatest length of mandible, 151; length from back of upper molar to front of canine, 71; length...