THE FLESH-EATING PREDATORY MAMMALS 135 



as is yet known the range did not extend to Scotland, or further 

 north than Yorkshire. Somewhat doubtful ursine remains in the 

 Shandon Cave in Ireland are attributed to the cave bear, but are 

 more likely of the grizzly bear type. 



Family: PROCYONID^. THE RACCOONS 



This group of small bear-like animals (differing, however, in 

 outward aspect from the bears in that they have tails sometimes 

 of great length) is slightly less specialised than the Bear group 

 in the shape of the molar teeth, but more specialised in that they 

 have lost a molar tooth from the lower jaw, never having more 

 than two pairs in each jaw, as against two pairs above and three 

 below found in all true bears. There is, however, one exception 

 to this in a somewhat transitional animal, the ^luropus, or big 

 panda. This creature, an inhabitant of Tibet, is extremely 

 bear-like in appearance, and has a very short, stumpy tail. It 

 was until recently classed with the bears, but it is now put in the 

 family Procyonida. j^luwpus has two pairs of molars above and 

 three pairs below. The Procyonida walk on the soles of their feet 

 (are plantigrade, that is to say). There are other anatomical 

 points in which they are more or less generalised than 

 the bears. They possibly originated from creatures allied to the 

 ancestral bears and dogs in North America or in North-east Asia. 

 They are represented in the British fauna by 



Mlurus anglicus. The British Panda 



This was an animal quite half again as large as the existing 

 Mlurus fulgens of the Himalayas, the only living representa- 

 tive of the genus to-day. The British Panda may have been 

 akin to ^luropus now existing in Tibet, which is a very large 

 bear-like panda with a short tail. The remains of the British 

 panda date from the end of the Pliocene period, and were found 

 in the east of England. No doubt the range of this genus and 

 of the allied j^luropus stretched once from England to Kamshatka, 

 and thence communicated with the allied forms of Procyonid^ in 

 North America. 



