d
them myself once, if not twice."

An observant sportsman, "Hawkeye," in one of his letters to the
_South of India Observer_, remarks that "on one occasion a gentleman
saw an old leopard accompanied by two of her offspring, one red, the
other black." He also says he has never known "of two black leopards
in company," but black pards have bred in zoological gardens. I am
told that cubs have been born in the Calcutta Garden, but they did
not live. General MacMaster, in his notes on Jerdon, makes the
pertinent remark: "If however black panthers are only accidental,
it is odd that no one has yet come on a black specimen of one of the
larger cats, _F. leo tigris_." I see no reason why such should not
yet be discovered; he was perhaps not aware that the jaguar of Brazil,
which comes next to the tiger, has been found black (_Felis nigra_
of Erxleben). A black tiger would be a prize. General MacMaster
relates that he once watched a fine black cat basking in the sun,
and noticed that in particular lights the animal exhibited most
plainly the regular brindled markings of the ordinary gray wild or
semi-wild cat. These markings were as black or blacker than the rest
of his hair. His mother was a half-wild gray brindle.

I think we have sufficient evidence that the black pard is merely
a variety of the common one, but now we come to the pards themselves,
and the question as to whether there are two distinct species or two
varieties; Blyth, Jerdon and other able naturalists, although fully
recognizing the differences, have yet hesitated to separate them,
and they still remain in the unsatisfactory relation to each other
of varieties. I feel convinced in my own mind that they are
sufficiently distinct to warrant their being classed, and
specifically named apart. It is not as I said before, that we should
go upon peculiarities of marking and colour, although these are
sufficiently obvious, but on their osteology and also the question
of interbreeding and production. Grant their relative sizes, one so
much bigger than the other, and the difference in colour and marking,
has it ever been known that out of a litter of several cubs by a female
of the larger kind, one of the smaller sort has been produced, or
_vice versa_? This is a question that yet remains for investigation.
My old district had both kinds in abundance, and I have had scores
of cubs, of both sorts, brought to me--cubs which could be
distinguished at a glance as to whic