AILURIDA. 123 
Very few elephants, however steady with tigers, will stand a bear. 
Whether it is that bears make such a row when wounded, or whether 
there be anything in the smell, I know not, but I have heard many 
sportsmen allude to the fact. A favourite elephant I had would stand 
anything but a bear anda pig. Few horses will approach a bear, and 
this is one difficulty in spearing them ; and for this reason I think bear 
dancers should be prohibited in towns.’ Calcutta used to swarm with 
them at one time. It always makes me angry when I see these men 
going about with the poor brutes, whose teeth and claws are often drawn, 
and a cruel ring passed through their sensitive nostrils. I should like to 
set an old she-bear after the Jdhalu-wallas, with a fair field and no 
favour. 
The bear rising to hug its adversary is a fallacy as far as this species 
is concerned ; it does not squeeze, but uses its claws freely and with 
great effect. 
I think we have now exhausted our Indian bears. Some have 
spoken of a dwarf bear supposed to inhabit the Lower Himalayas, but 
as yet it is unknown—possibly it may be the Azduropus. We now 
come to the Bear-like animals, the next in order, being the Racoons 
(Procyon), Coatis (Vaswa), Kinkajous (Cercoleptes), and the Cacomixle 
(Bassaris) of North and South America, and then our own Panda 
or Cat-Bear (Adlurus fulgens). 
This, with the above-mentioned Racoons, &c., forms a small group 
of curious bear-like animals, mostly of small size. Externally they 
differ considerably, especially in their long bushy tails, but in all 
essential particulars they coincide. ‘They are plantigrade, and are 
without a czecum or blind gut; the skull, however it may approach 
to a viverrine or feline shape, has still marked arctoid charac- 
teristics. The ear passage is well marked and bony, as in that of 
the bear, but the bulb of the drum (é4w//a tympani) is much developed, 
as in the dogs and cats. The molars are more tuberculated than in 
the bears, resembling the hinder molars of a dog. 
AILURID. 
F. Cuvier, who received the first specimen of the type of this family 
from his son-in-law, M. Duvaucel, was not happy in his selection of a 
name, which would lead one to suppose that it was affixed to the cats 
instead of the bears. It certainly in some degree resembles the cat 
externally, and it has also semi-retractile claws, but in greater measure 
it belongs to the Arctoidea. ‘There are only two genera as yet known 
—the Red Cat-Bear, Ailurus fulgens, and the Thibetan Az/uropus 
melanoleucos. ; 
