ZOOLOGY. 737 



most active of these new laborers is Mr. Florentino Anieghino, who has 

 contributed several important memoirs ou fossil mammals to the "Bole- 

 tin de la Academia National de Cientias" of the Argentine city Cordoba 

 (vol. V, pp. 1-34; 101-116; 257-300; 1883). In one of these memoirs 

 ( Sobre una coleccion de mamiferos fosiles, recogidos por el profesor Sca- 

 labrini en las barrancas del Parana, in vol. V, pp. 257-306,) he has de- 

 scribed a number of new animals from a formation antecedent to that 

 which has furnished so many well-known pampean types, and has ex- 

 pressed his belief that they were the legitimate predecessors of the latter. 

 For example, the Chlamydotherium typus was preceded by the Chlamy- 

 dotherium 2)aranensis, Hoploplorus by Palcehoplophorus, Mylodon by Pro- 

 mylodon, Megatherium by Promegatherium, Toxodon by Toxodontotherium, 

 and Macrauchenia by Scolibrinitherium. Both series of these animals — 

 the later as well as the earlier — are not only themselves extinct, but 

 have left no successors of the same families even. They belong to four 

 extinct families. But in addition to these, forms still living were repre- 

 sented by relatives of the same family and even by closely allied genera 

 in the Parana period. The deer were then exemplified by a certain 

 generic type called Proterotherium. Of that giant of existing rodents, 

 the Hydrochcerus or Capybara, a still larger predecessor named Cardia- 

 therium existed, and the genus Lago.stomus had . then already been 

 developed under the form L. paranensis, and the genealogy through L. 

 angustideiis and L. fossilis is traceable directly or indirectly into the 

 L. trichodactylus now living (op. tit, p. 305). 



Maternal intelligence in Deer. — An interesting instance of maternal 

 solicitude and intelligence has been noticed by Mr. W. H. Bavenscroft in 

 the spotted deer (Cervus axis) of Ceylon. A newly made mother was 

 noticed without her young in the afternoons of several successive days, 

 and a man set to watch to detect what she had done with it. It ap- 

 peared the doe went to certain bushes and "put the fawn to bed every 

 afternoon, for about eight or ten days, at about 4.30 P. M., and hid it so 

 successfully that, though "the observer "knew within a few feet the 

 place in which it was" concealed, he "never succeeded in finding it." 

 (P. Z. S., London, 1883, p. 465.) 



Extinct Dogs of North America. — The family Canidae, including the 

 dogs, wolves, foxes, and kindred animals, are of quite an ancient lineage, 

 and, according to Professor Cope, "probably first appeared in the Upper 

 Eocene epoch," but in the United States " no undoubted species of 

 Canidse has been found in beds older than Oligocene or oldest Miocene." 

 Their remains have been obtained in the greatest abundance in the 

 Middle Miocene, are not rare in the Upper Miocene, and " species ac- 

 company the Pliocene fauna everywhere." Twenty-five species of the 

 family, representing nine genera, have been recognized by Professor 

 Cope. It is possible however that several of these species are referable 

 elsewhere than to this family. (Am. Nat, vol. xvii, pp. 235-249.) 

 II . Mis. 61) 47 



