IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Pocock, R.I. | |
| Catalogue of the genus Felis | |
| 1951 Full Book | |
Amongst systematic zoologists there are still wide differences of opinion regarding the status to be assigned to the various groups into which the existing species of Felidae obviously fall. By Linnaeus and several of those that immediately followed him all the known forms were considered to be referable to a single genus, _Felis_, despite the manifest differences between such representatives of the group as the house-cat and the lion, for example, although Kerr as early as 1792 gave separate generic rank to the Lynx under that name. But in 1821 Gray began a series of publications, continued until 1874, in which he proposed a number of generic and subgeneric terms for various species, and his works overlapped, without quoting, a paper by Severtzow in 1853 in which generic names, without definitions, were accorded to most of the then described species. The result was considerable clashing and confusion in the nomenclature, and many unrelated species were affiliated and closely allied species generically separated. The nomenclature and classification adopted in this volume are, with a few amplifications and emendations, the same as those proposed in a paper I published in 1917. In two particulars the present volume differs from previous catalogues of the mammals in the national collection. The first is the inclusion of the interesting and extensive material of the domesticated representatives of the family, and the second is the more detailed attention paid to individual skins and skulls. Although this method involves more lengthened treatment than is customary of the forms dealt with, it was held to be desirable as the only means of emphasising the extent of the individual variations in colour, shape of skull or teeth to which species or local races are liable. Realisation of this is particularly called for in view of the prevalent tendency to regard as deserving of nominal distinction perhaps single specimens differing from one another in trivial characters if inhabiting different localities. |
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