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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Friday, January 13, 2012

JON'S JOURNAL: Black tigers and Black dogs

One of the most important books in my life has been The Hong Kong Countryside by the late Geoffrey Herklots in which he urged everyone living in the colony who had an interest in nature to keep a nature diary.

Well, I haven't lived in Hong Kong for about 40 years, and I have never kept a regular nature diary, although my various jottings on the subject have been posted on this blog over the past six years. However, at the age of 50 (about 44 years after I first read Herklots' sage advice) I am going to try.

This morning I received an email from Matt Salusbury who wrote:

Came across this Victorian poster on the Natural History Museum library site which appears to be advertising a show with "black tigers." Are there known black tigers, or were they dyed, or deliberately misidentified other melanistic cats, I wonder.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/community/library/blog?fromGateway=true

Are there black tigers? Well, possibly. In 1773, while in the service of British East India Company in Kerala, southwest India, artist James Forbes painted a watercolor of a black tiger shot a few months earlier by the soldiers The painting has been lost, but Forbes' description of it survives:

I have also the opportunity of adding the portrait of an extraordinary Tyger [sic], shot a few months ago by the Nairs in this neighborhood, and presented to the chief as a great curiosity. It was entirely black yet striped in the manner of the Royal-Tyger, with shades of a still darker hue, like the richest black, glossed with purple. My pencil is very deficient in displaying these mingled tints; nor do I know how to describe them better than by the difference you would observe in a black cloth variegated with shades of a rich velvet.

Other black tigers across history have probably been melanistic leopards and it is tempting to presume that this is what were advertised in the Wombwells poster that Matt brought to our attention.

The largest amount of black tiger lore that I have been able to find is in Karl Shuker's seminal Mystery Cats of the World (1989) but - sod's law - I can't find my copy at present, which is worrying.

And what about the black dog in the title? That one is firmly on my back as I am presently going through one of my regular bouts of bi-polar instability. I feel as mad as a bagful of cheese at the moment, and am probably being a pain in the are to all who come into contact with me. But it will pass - it always does...



Lisa Hannigan sings Nick Drake's 'Black Eyed Dog', one of the best bi-polar songs ever. I wish I'd written it.

4 comments:

Retrieverman said...

Not a true black tiger, but close:

1. http://circusnospin.blogspot.com/2010/09/white-tiger-cub-turns-black-in-chennai.html

2. As a bit older cub: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getimage.dll?path=CAP/2010/08/30/11/Img/Pc0111100.jpg

I'd like to see what it looks like now.

Retrieverman said...

Not a true black tiger, but close:

1. http://circusnospin.blogspot.com/2010/09/white-tiger-cub-turns-black-in-chennai.html

2. As a bit older cub: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getimage.dll?path=CAP/2010/08/30/11/Img/Pc0111100.jpg

I'd like to see what it looks like now.

Retrieverman said...

If this Chennai tiger had been a boxer dog, we would call it a reverse brindle.

Lee Williams said...

The description of the black tiger reminds me of Borges' story 'Blue Tigers'. I wonder if he also read Forbes' account?