6 



VERTEBRATA. 



are generally rudimentary or wanting. The feet have usually five 

 toes, always armed with claws. 



The carnivores were numerous in Eocene time, but they were 

 generalized types, having marsupial affinities. The Falmocyon 

 from the Plastic clay of England and France, was one of the earliest 

 progenitors of the digitigrades. A forerunner of the plantigrades 

 Avas Arctocyon from the lower Eocene of France; other carnivores, 

 large and small, occur in the Eocene lake-beds of Western America. 

 Many of these early carnivores were of large size and fierce charac- 

 ter. The true cats and the typical plantigrades probably were not 

 differentiated until the Miocene. The amphibious carnivores (Seals) 

 have not been found below the Miocene. 



The fossil carnivores of Post-Tertiary time are found principally 

 in caves and fissures. 



No. 6. [6] Machairodus neogaeus, Kaup. 



Head (cast), mounted. This, happily extinct and most formidable of car- 

 nivores, belonged to a group of cats which in Tertiary and Quaternary times 

 ranged, throughout America, India and Europe. Profe.ssor Owen finds its 

 nearest affnities in the Lion. It equaled the Bengal Tiger in size, and had 

 upper canines of thrice the length — the crown alone measuring 7 inches. The 

 canines of the Machairodus are, in fact, the most remarkable of all fossil teeth 



of large carnivorous mammals that have been discovered; they are long, 

 curved, and compressed, and, provided with a double-cutting edge of serrated 

 enamel, resemble trenchant sabres, whence the generic name. There is a 

 depression on the outside of each ramus of the lower jaw to receive the upper 



