CYNOIDEA. 229 
ligament by which the process of retraction in the cat is effected is 
present in a rudimentary form, but is permanently overpowered by the 
greater flexor muscles. A dog’s paw is therefore by no means such 
a wonderful piece of mechanism and example of power as that of the 
cat, but is feeble in comparison, and is never used as a weapon of 
offence, as in the case of felines, the prey being always seized by the 
teeth. 
The skull partakes of the characteristics of both cat and bear. It 
departs from the simple cutting dentition of the former by the addition 
of two tuberculated molars in each upper jaw, or one more than the 
rudimentary molar in the cat, whilst the lower jaw has two extra molars 
on each side ; the premolars are also in excess, being four in number 
on each side of the upper and lower jaws, whereas in the feline there 
are three above and two below. 
There is alsoa difference in the lower carnassial or first molar, 
' which impinges on the upper carnassial or fourth premolar ; it has a 
protuberance behind, termed the heel, which is prominently marked, 
but it is in the molars in which the greatest deviation from the specially 
carnivorous dentition occurs. ‘The incisors are somewhat larger than, 
but the canines and premolars approximate to, those of the felines ; the 
crown of the incisors is cuspidate, and the premolars increase gradually 
in size, with the exception of the fourth in the upper jaw, the carnassial, 
which is treble the size of the one next to it. 
But it is in the molars that we find the similarity to the semi- 
herbivorous bears. ‘The last two molars on each side of the upper and 
lower jaws are true grinders, divided into four cusps, which suits the 
dog to a mixed diet. 
Of course the increased number of teeth (the dog has forty-two against 
thirty of the cat) necessitates a prolonged muzzle, and therefore the skull 
has more of the bear than the cat shape. ‘The nasal bones are long, 
the zygomatic arch smaller, but it has the ear-bulb or dudla tympani, so 
conspicuous in the cat and wanting in the bear, yet the character of 
the aperture of the ear or auditory meatus approaches that of the latter, 
as the margins of its outer aperture are somewhat prolonged into a short 
tube or spout, instead of being flush, as in the felines. Then the bony 
clamp or par-occipital process, which in the cats is fixed against 
the hinder end of the bulla, is in the dogs separated, by a decided 
groove. 
The intestinal peculiarities of this section consist of a very large 
cecum or blind gut, which is small in the cats and wholly absent in the 
bears, and in the very long intestines. Some have a sub-caudal gland 
secreting a pungent whey-like matter. 
