The Zoology of North American Big Game 



tribution of these variations, It has not yet been 

 found, and no satisfactory sub-division of the genus 

 has been made, beyond setting aside the hunting- 

 leopard or cheetah as Cynalurus, upon peculiar- 

 ities of skull and teeth. 



True cats of the genus Felis were In existence be- 

 fore the close of the Miocene, and yet earlier re- 

 lated forms are known. Throughout the greater 

 part of the Tertiary the remarkable type known as 

 sabre-toothed cats were numerous and widely 

 spread, and In South America they even lasted so 

 far Into the Pleistocene that It Is probably true that 

 they existed side by side with man. Some of them 

 were as large as any existing cat and had upper 

 canines six Inches or more In length. Cats have no 

 near relations upon the American continent, nor do 

 they appear to have ever had many except the sabre- 

 tooths. Of present species some fifty are known, 

 inhabiting all of the greater geographical areas ex- 

 cept Australia. They are tropical and heat loving, 

 but the short-tailed lynxes are northern, while both 

 the tiger and leopard in Asia, and puma in 

 America, range Into sub-arctic temperatures, and It 

 Is a curious anomaly that while Siberian tigers have 

 gained the protection of a long, warm coat of hair, 

 pumas from British America differ very little In 

 this respect from those of warm regions. 



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