232 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Old and New Worlds were referred to the true Carnivora (Fissipedia); 

 later on the j^reat French palaeontologists, Gervais and Gaudry, empha- 

 sized the affinities of some among them to the marsupials, a view 

 adopted in a broad sense by Huxley and other authorities, but dis- 

 puted bv Filhol and most subsequent writers. In 1875 the accumu- 

 lating new discoveries of material enabled Cope to reconstruct, from 

 various forms referred to marsupials, Carnivora, and Insectivora, the 

 group of Creodonta^ with affinities to all three orders named, but more 

 nearly related to the two latter, and containing the ancestral types of 

 the modern Carnivora. Schlosser, in his monumental studies upon 

 the fossil primates and unguiculates of Europe, regards the Creodonta 

 as definitively related to the true Carnivora, excluding from the group 

 a number of insectivore-like types which had been included by Cope. 

 He divides them into Adaptiva and Inadaptiva, both springing from 

 a common primitive creodont stem, the former approximatel}' ances- 

 tral to the true Carnivora, the latter becoming extinct. This view is 

 substantialh' indorsed b}^ subsequent writers, with the exception of 

 Wortman. who in his studies of Eocene Carnivora in the Marsh collec- 

 tion, appears inclined to lay emphasis, especially in the first part of 

 his paper, upon the marsupial affinities of the group. 



So far as I can understand Doctor AVortman's position, it seems to 

 be that the creodonts and carnivores are two distinct branches, both 

 derived from the Cretaceous marsupials exemplified by Didelp/iops^ 

 and that the modern carnivorous marsupials, except for the inflection 

 of the jaw and suppression of the second set of teeth, are little altered 

 from the Cretaceous ancestors of the placental Carnivora. Hence the 

 Basal Eocene creodonts and carnivores are closely allied to the living 

 marsupials, the Middle Eocene less nearly so, and in the Oligocene 

 and later formations the modern carnivore stamp becomes more 

 apparent. 



The essential divergence of this view from that generall}^ accepted 

 is in the nearer alliance implied between marsupials and placentals. 

 In Wortman's view the Carnivora. Creodonta, Insectivora, etc., arise 

 each as a separate branch from the Cretaceous marsupials, which also 

 persist little altered in the modern Folyprotodonts. If this l)e true, 

 the modern groups of placentals are not more nearl}^ related to each 

 other than they are to the Polyprotodont marsupials, and their resem- 

 blances are all due to parallelism. This view is only held conjecturally 

 in the case of other groups, but is quite speciticallv stated in regard 

 to Creodonts and true Carnivores. 



I do not think, however, that the evidence, even as stated by 

 Wortman, supports this view, and quite naturally he is inclined to 

 lay emphasis upon the marsupialoid features of the creodont skull. 

 On the contrary. I think it is safe to say that if we set aside super- 



