MONKEYS AND RACCOONS 
249 
From my previous remarks (p. 152) it would appear as if the 
raccoon family (Procyonidae) had originated in some western 
land in America, and yet the genus Cercoleptes (Potos), which 
belongs to this family, is certainly an invader from the south. 
Indeed, when we examine the range of the members of this 
typically American family of Procyonidae, we notice the 
peculiar feature that almost all the species are confined to the 
Pacific coast. The raccoon (Procyon lotor) no doubt has ex¬ 
tended ils range to the eastern States, while the allied species 
Procyon maynardi, as we have learnt, is even confined to the 
Bahama islands, and one, the coati (Nasua rufa), has a wide 
distribution in South America from Bolivia eastward. Almost 
all the other members of the family, however, inhabit 
curiously disconnected areas in the vicinity of the Pacific 
Ocean. Bassaricyon lives in Ecuador, Panama and Costa 
Rica. One species of Bassariscus is peculiar to the island 
of Espiritu-Santo near lower California, another ranges from 
Mexico to the western States, a third occurs in western 
Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and on Mount Chiriqui, in 
western Panama, at a height of 6,000 feet. Of the coatis 
(Nasua), one species passes from Mexico northward to Cali¬ 
fornia and southward to Costa Rica, another is confined to 
the island of Cozumel, a third lives in the Ecuador mountains 
at a height of 7,000 feet, whereas Nasua olivacea is met 
with in Santa Fe de Bogota and in the Merida of Venezuela 
at heights up to 12,000 feet. Altogether it looks as if the 
members of the family Procyonidae had spread from various 
western foci. Some of them may have retained their original 
distribution, while the more adaptable genera sent outposts 
eastward into the great continents. The early stages of this 
evolution must have taken place before either Central America 
or South America had become consolidated into anything like 
their present shapes. Later on I shall have occasion to dis¬ 
cuss other similar cases of discontinuous distribution occur¬ 
ring among the lower vertebrates. All of these appear to be 
due to the same peculiar features in the physical geography 
of Tertiary America. 
In eastern Mexico we make our first acquaintance with 
monkeys. In early Eocene times, as already mentioned, 
monkeys, belonging to extinct groups, probably entered the 
