HISTORY OF THE CARNIVORA 



529 



Finally, so far as North America is concerned, there was 

 a phylum of very small fox-like canids, which ranged from the 

 lower Miocene to the upper Eocene and were very abundant, 

 relatively speaking, in the White River and John Day. The 

 dental formula was the same as in Canis and the skull was 

 narrow and slender, though the brain-chamber was propor- 

 tionately capacious, and the face was quite short. The tym- 

 panic bullae were large and inflated. The body and tail were 



Fig. 260. — Small, fox-like dog {]Cyiiodictis gregarlus) of the White River. Restored 

 from a skeleton in the American Museum of Natural History. 



long and the limbs quite short and weak. The humerus had 

 no epicondylar foramen and the femur no third trochanter. 

 The five-toed feet had the spreading arrangement of the meta- 

 podials seen in the more primitive fissipedes generally and the 

 claws were sharp. In proportions and appearance these 

 animals must have been more like civets or weasels than like 

 dogs and it is evident that they were not swift runners. The 

 series had its earliest representatives {^Procynodictis) in the 

 Uinta and was doubtless derived from the fcreodont family 



2m 



