CHAPTER XIII 



CAKNIVOKA l FISSIPEDIA 



Order VII. CARNIVORA 



THIS order may be thus defined : Small to large quadrupeds, 

 terrestrial, arboreal, or aquatic, of usually carnivorous habits. 

 The teeth have generally sharp and cutting edges, and the canines 

 are well developed ; the incisors are small, and four to six in 

 number. The number of toes is never less than four. There 

 are usually strong and sharp claws. The clavicles are incomplete 

 or absent. In the hand the scaphoid and lunar bones are always 

 united. The brain is well developed, and the hemispheres are 

 well convoluted. The stomach is always simple, while the 

 caecum, if present, is always small. The members of this 

 group have a deciduate and zonary placenta. 



The fewness of the characters used in the above definition is 

 chiefly owing to the fact that the Seals and Sea-lions, although 

 they are referable without a doubt to this order, have undergone 

 in their metamorphosis into aquatic animals so many changes that 

 some of the main features in the structure of their terrestrial 

 relatives have been lost. This group will, however, be again 

 characterised. We shall deal at present with the land division 

 of the Carnivora, the CARNIVORA FISSIPEDIA as they are generally 

 termed. The name is of course given to them to distinguish 

 them from the corresponding division of the PINNIPEDIA. In 

 the latter group the feet and hands are modified into " fins " ; in 

 the other the fingers and toes are cleft, as with terrestrial beasts 

 generally. 



1 For a general account of the osteology, see Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1869, p. 4 ; 

 and for muscular anatomy, Windle and Parsons, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1897, p. 370, and 

 1898, p. 152. 



