ANIMALS OF THE CAT TRIBE.

Manawatu Herald, 29 December 1896, Page 4

ANIMALS OF THE CAT TRIBE.

* ' They "Are Found In Every Tart of tbn World _ „ Except Australia aud Madagascar. 5 The group of cats, wild and domestic, £.< constitute enn cT tbs most natural and ,i| closely allied fittn'ies in the whole ntiitnal . kin^dd";- Timy-.i ■■■• so remark. .bly uiikeiu '. sf«wC*t"^B*>ougn varying much in size <and colC^C^at zoologists at the present • time consider them as constituting what they term but one genus or group, to all the animals In which they give the scientific name of Felis, the different animals or species com poajug it being each distinguished by a sccoriu or specific name. The characters of the animals of the oat _ tribe are strongly marked. They are the most purely carnivorous of all quadrupeds. They feed in the natural state on warm •' blooded animals, which they themselves hare killed, one species only, an Indian kind, preying habitually upon fish. They inay*t)e regarded as the very type of destfhictive flesh eaters, being furnished with thg most complete and powerful mechanl Ism for the capture of living animals. 1 Cats, large and small, are to be found in 1 every part of the world except Australia •. and Madagascar. The largest tire confined s to the tropical regions of the globe, the lion feeing common in Asia and Africa. The / tiger is exclusively Asiatic and, contrary to the usual belief, is even larger than the lion. So closely are these two animals related that their skulls tan hardly be distinguished from ono another except by a very skilled anatomist. The next largest of the group is tho a native of both Asia and Africa. The leopard is frequently termed the pan- - ther and regarded as a different animal, but there is no real distinction between the two. The puma, which is sometimes, but * erroneously, called tho panther in the „ United States, and tho jaguar are the largest of the American species. The lynxes, which are common to the old world nnd the new, are distinguished by their short and stumpy tails. Their habits, however, and structure are otherwise exactly like those of the ordinary cats. The different species of the wild cats that exist in various parts of the world raise the total number of the whole tribe of felidffl to rather more than 40, according to the naturalist who is authority for the foregoing.