42 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
Almost all the fossil Cats belong to a division now extinct, 
in which the upper canine teeth were enlarged into great curving, 
flattened, sharp-edged tusks, sometimes seven inches long. 
Smuilodon of the Pleistocene epoch was as large as a polar 
bear, and exceedingly muscular, especially in the great massive 
fore-limbs. The claws in the mounted skeleton (upright case) 
are larger than the largest lion claws. One of the great tusks 
is complete, the other was broken off during the lifetime of the 
FiG. 18. THE GREAT SARBE-TOOTH TIGER, SMILODON 
Pleistocene of South America. Restoration by Wolff. Courtesy of Dr. Elliott 
animal, for the stump shows evidence of considerable wear after 
it was broken. This skeleton was found near Buenos Aires in 
Argentina along with the remains of gigantic ground-sloths 
(Vegatherium) and tortoise-armadillos (Glyptodon) which may 
well have been the prey of this most terrible of all the Carnivora. 
But the Smilodons ranged all over the New World, and like the 
nearly allied Macherodus, which was distributed over all the 
northern continents, were contemporaries of primitive man. 
Whether our paleolithic ancestors ventured to contend with this 
gigantic foe, we do not know, but the structure of its skeleton 
indicates that, although more powerful than the lion and the 
