502 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. loi 



are both lefts and therefore cannot possibly have belonged to one 

 individual. The remaining two bones (metatarsal V and metacarpal 

 II) we consider unquestionably puma. 



In 1939 and 1940 J. Kyker and C. Hicks, employees in Craighead 

 Caverns, near Sweetwater, Monroe County, Tenn., discovered foot- 

 prints and several bones which G. G. Simpson (1941a) identified as 

 jaguar. These bones, now in the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, include the right ramus of the lower jaw (A.M.N.H. No. 32633), 

 lacking the incisors and the coronoid process and the medial portion 

 of the articular condyle; the right side of the muzzle and cheek 

 (A. M. N. H. No. 32635) with V-V, C, and P^-P^; the glenoid angle of 

 the right scapula (A.M.N.H. No. 32638) ; and a left second metatarsal 

 (A.M.N.H. No. 32637). 



DISCUSSION 



Among fossil cats heretofore described and probably specifically 

 distinct, the closest relationship to the new material is found in what 

 Leidy (1852) originally defined as Felis atrox. He based this species 

 upon a lower jaw fragment containing the canine, two premolars, and 

 the molar. The type specimen belonged to the American Philosophi- 

 cal Society (now Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia No. 

 12546) , and it was unlabeled when Leidy studied it. He inferred that 

 it probably came from Natchez, Miss., as it was kept with some fossils 

 sent from that locality by William Henry Huntington. Its origin is 

 thus not certainly known, and it is interesting that no other fossils 

 definitely identified as belonging to the same species have since been 

 found in the eastern part of North America. 



A large number of disassociated bones of this species, now called 

 Panthera atrox, came out of the famous asphalt pits at Rancho La 

 Brea, Calif., and were elaborately studied by Merriam and Stock 

 ( 1932) and compared with other species, ancient and modern. These 

 authors concluded that P. atrox resembles the jaguar {Panthera onca) 

 more closely than any other species and differs primarily in size, being 

 the largest of all cats. They also decided that another species named 

 by Leidy, Felis imperialism which Freudenberg (1910) had called a 

 giant jaguar, is synonymous with P. atrox and is based upon smaller 

 individuals. 



Simpson (1941) reaffirmed these affinities of P. atrox and P. onca 

 and suggested a subgenus, Jaguarius, to indicate this relationship. 

 He also decided that Felis augustus Leidy and Felis veronis Hay 

 cannot be separated from each other or from P. onca by any reliable 

 criteria of more than subspecific value. He therefore ascribed Leidy's 

 material from Nebraska, Hay's from Florida, and his own from 

 Tennessee to Panthera iJaguarius) onca augusta. 



