Ocelot is an abbreviation of _tlalocelotl_, the name of this animal in Mexico, its native country. It is ferocious and carnivorous, and may be ranked with the jaguar and cougar, for it is very nearly the same size, and resembles them in figure and dispositions. A male and female were shewn at the fair of St. Ovide, in September 1764. They came from the neighbourhood of Carthagena, and had been taken from their mother in the month of October, 1763. They became so strong and cruel at the age of three months as to kill and eat the bitch which had nursed them. When we saw them, at a year old, they were about two feet long, and they had then, probably, not attained more than one half, or two-thirds, of their growth. These animals were shewn by the name of the _tiger-cat_, but we have rejected this denomination as precarious and confused, especially as the jaguar, serval, and the margay, or Cayenne cat, were sent to us under the same denomination, although those three animals are very different from each other, as well as from the one we are at present treating of. The first author who mentions this animal in a distinct manner is Fabri. He caused Recchi's designs of it to be engraven, and composed his description from them. He gives also a kind of history of him from the writings and information of Gregoire de Bolivar. I made these observations with a view to throw light on the circumstance which had led all the naturalists into an error, and by which I acknowledge I was also deceived. This circumstance is to know whether the two animals designed by Recchi, the first by the name of _tlatlauhquiocelotl_ and the second by that of _tlacoozlotl_, _tlalocelotl_, and afterwards described by Fabri as different species, are not the same animal. They were considered as distinct animals, notwithstanding the resemblance of their figures, because their names, and even descriptions, were different. I then supposed the first might be the same as the jaguar, and therefore gave him the Mexican name of _tlatlauhquiocelotl_, which I am now convinced does not belong to him; and since I have seen both the male and female, I am persuaded, that the two described by Fabri, are only the same animal, of which the first is the male, and the second the female. This error could only have been discovered by such a chance as we had of examining both the male and the female together. Of all animals whose skins are spotted, the robe of the male ocelot (_fig. 180._) is certainly the most beautiful, and most elegantly varied. Even the skin of the leopard does not come near it for the liveliness of its colours, and the regularity of its marks; and far less those of the jaguar, panther, and ounce. The colours of the female ocelot are much weaker, and the design less regular; and this apparent difference it was that deceived Recchi, Fabri, and others, and was the occasion of their considering them as different species.