348 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SABER-TOOTHED CATS. 



By s. w. \villisto:n. 



OF the family of cats, the Felidce of naturalists, there are now in 

 existence npon the earth about fifty distinct sj^ecies, nearly all of 

 which are so closely allied to each other that they have received the 

 common designation of Felis. Our domestic cat, whose wild origin 

 is lost in history, is a good representative of the family and one of its 

 smallest members. The Asiatic tiger, the largest and most powerful 

 of all, rarely reaches a length of eleven feet, while the African lion 

 falls not far behind in size and prowess. 



The habits of all these fifty species are much alike. With the 

 exception of a fish-eating Indian species, they all obtain their food, 

 which consists of the flesh of other animals, by stealth. For this 

 reason they are all, with the excejition of the African lion, inhab- 

 itants of forests and jungles, rarely frequenting the open plains, 

 where concealment is less easy. ISTo other living animals are so per- 

 fectly adapted for carnivorous habits as are they: their teeth are 

 sharp and cutting; their claws long and pointed, and ensheathed 

 v/hen at rest; their body is lithe and flexible. Their intelligence, 

 while perhajDS not equal to that possessed by the other great carniv- 

 orous family, the dogs, is by no means of an inferior order. 



These fifty living species, however, comprise but a small propor- 

 tion of all those that have lived in the past. More than that number 

 of extinct cats are already known to scientific men, and many others 

 must have lived of which we yet have no knowledge, and perhaps 

 never may. Those fossil cats have been discovered in nearly all of 

 the great regions of the world where their descendants now live. In 

 Australia and Madagascar they have apparently never lived, because 

 these regions were separated from the mainlands long before cats 

 came into existence, and they have never found an opportunity to 

 reach them since. The oldest cats are known from Europe and 

 JS'orth America, making their appearance in geological history, so 

 far as we now know, at nearly the same time. In South America 

 they appeared much later. 



In no continent have the extinct cats been found in greater 

 variety and abundance than in the United States, and it is not 

 improbable that here is the real birthplace of the family. More than 

 twenty-five species have already been discovered in the United 

 States, and doubtless not a few others will yet be added to the list. 

 The oldest are from the Bad Lands of South Dakota and Wyoming, 

 while others, only a little more recent, are from Oregon. Re- 

 mains of those which lived much later have been discovered in 



