FELINES. 491 



rated edges, but of larger size than the specimen figured (fig. 6) 

 were first discovered in tertiary strata in Italy and Germany, and 

 were referred by Cuvier to a species of Bear under the name of 

 Ursus cultridens ; but similar canines were afterwards discovered in 

 situ with some of the molar teeth in the tertiary deposits of France, (1) 

 which proved the animal to belong to the Fehne family ; and the 

 same evidence is afforded by fossil specimens of both upper and 

 lower jaws of other species of Machairodus from the tertiary de- 

 posits of the Sewalik mountain range in India, transmitted by 

 Captain Cautley to the British Museum ; as well as by remains dis- 

 covered in the newer tertiary deposits of Buenos Ayres, and in 

 the ossiferous Caves of Brasil.(2) 



The dental formula of the present extinct genus of FelidcB is : — 



Incisors — ; canines — ; premolars — ; ; molars — : = 28. 



Here, therefore the adult dentition closely approximates the deci- 

 duous formula of the genus ¥elis. In the lower jaw of the Machai- 

 rodus neogcBus in the British Museum the anterior premolar on each 

 side the lower jaw is shed, and its dentition is thus rendered numeri- 

 cally identical with that transitory formula. The dental characteristic 

 of the immature state of the existing Lion and Tiger was thus re- 

 tained, in combination with a most remarkable modification of the 

 canine teeth, in the extinct and more formidable Carnivore of the 

 ancient world. 



The middle incisors of the upper jaw, in the depth and width 

 of the vertical notch bisecting the posterior ridge of the crown, 

 more closely resemble those of the Hycena than those of the Felines ; 

 they are more compressed, especially at their strong implanted base. 

 The external incisor is as large as, and in some species appears to 

 be larger in proportion to the intermediate incisors, than in the 

 genus Felis. In the ancient British Machairodus CM. latidens,J 

 the anterior convex part of the crown of the external incisor is 



(1) Bravard, Monographie de deux Felis d'Auvergne, 1828. 



(2) See my History of British Fossil Mammalia,' Part iv., 1844, p. 174. The remains 

 of Machairodus from the Brazilian caves were first noticed by their discoverer Dr. Lund 

 as indications of an extinct Hyaena, for which he proposed the name of H. neogaa : 

 subsequently he recognised its distinctive characters, and proposed for it the generic name of 

 Smilodoii : the canine tooth figured in Dr. Lund's second Memoir, in the Copenhagen Transac- 



