85 



CHAPTER XI. 



CARNIVORA. AFFINITIES. EXTINCT FELINE SPECIES. — ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION. BONE-CAVES 



IN BRAZIL. MAUVAISES TERRES. 



The Carnivora consist of the Cats and Dogs (Digitigrada), the Bears (Plantigrada), and 

 Seals (Pinnigrada). Professor Owen places them in this order, doubtless in accordance with 

 what he considers tlieir respective degrees of development. Other authors have preferred to place 

 the Pears at the head of the Carnivora, from the idea that by the plantigrade walking feet 

 of some, and by the prehensile feet of others, they showed more relationship to the Quadrumana 

 than the other members of the order, and so formed the most natural transition from them 

 to it; but proximate affinity is not to be looked for in these two orders, and it is straining 

 parallel resemblances too far to construe them as evidences of connexion : at the same time 

 there is no harm in keeping in mind that resemblances in various points may be traced between 

 the Arctopitheci among the Quadi-umana, the Racoons among the Bears, and the Squirrels among 

 the Rodents. 



The oldest form that we can trace of each order is as perfect and advanced as any of the species 

 of the present day ; and if we trust to nothing but the evidence of fossil remains, we are compelled to 

 admit that each had started into being lOce Minerva from Jove's head, fully armed, with all 

 the attributes of our present species. The fossU monkey from the caves of Brazil Is of the 

 South American type, and has the characters of that type as fully developed as the most modern 

 improvement upon them aU ; so it is wdth those of the Old-world section, remains of which have 

 been fovmd in Europe. The earliest Carnivore did not apj)ear in the shape of some less perfect 

 animal or intermediate modification, from which a lion, a dog, or a bear, may have successively 

 sprung ; but in as perfectly developed a carnivorous form as any subsequent species of that order. 

 These are the extinct animals described under the names of Paljeocyon, Amphicvon, &c. 



The Carnivora, however, do not appear as a well-establislied family until the pliocene 

 period, although scanty remnants of a few species have been foimd in the eocene and lower miocene 

 formations. It is to the fossiliferous caves and diluvial deposits about the time of, or succeeding 

 to the glacial epoch, that we are indebted for the most of our knowledge of the extinct species 

 of this order. The caves examined by Lund in Brazil, which belong to the pliocene cijoch, have con- 

 tributed some most interesting materials to it. The only localities in which carnivorous remains 

 have been discovered of an older date than the glacial epoch are — 1. Some of the European eocene 

 and miocene deposits ; 2. The deposits in the Mauvaises Terres, east of the Rocky Mountains in 

 North America, which again belong to the miocene epoch ; and 3. The miocene beds of Sevalik, 

 in the Himmalayah. All the prc-glacial remains belong to a different type from that of the existing 

 Carnivores, which only first appeared during the glacial epoch. Map 12 shows their distributiuu 

 previous to the elevation of the bed of the Saharan sea. 



