Fig. 



Didelphys virginiana^ left 

 fore foot. 



Article XX.— OXY^NA AND PATRIOFELIS RESTUD- 

 lED AS TERRESTRIAL CREODONTS. 



By Henry Fairfield Osborn. 

 Plates XVIII and XIX. 



Comparatively little was known 

 of the skeletal structure of these 

 animals until the American Mus- 

 eum Expeditions of 1891 and 1893 

 ^secured complete skeletons of each, 

 which Dr. J. L. Wortman carefully 

 described and figured. After a 

 searching comparison with modern 

 land and water Carnivora he con- 

 cluded that Patriofelis was prob- 

 ably aquatic in habit and possibly 

 ■ancestral to the modern Pinnipedia 

 and that the much older type 

 Oxyczna and the more recent type 

 ■Oxycenodon, bore similar testimony to affinities with the Seals. In 



describin g Patriofelis 

 he remarked : " The 

 broad, flat, planti- 

 grade feet with their 

 spreading toes sug- 

 gest at the first glance 

 their use for swim- 

 ming " ('94, p. 161). 

 Recently, under 

 the direction of the 

 present writer, the 

 Oxyana lupina skele- 

 ton has been mounted 

 and the Patriofelis 

 ferox skeleton taken 

 apart and remounted 

 by Mr. Hermann, 

 head preparator. At 



rig. 2. Ai^r/(;y"(?AVy"(fr(;j-, left forefoot, from mounted skeleton, the Same time several 



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