CHAPTER XIII 
CARNIVORA '—FISSIPEDIA 
Order VII. CARNIVORA 
THis order may be thus defined:—Small to large quadrupeds, 
terrestrial, arboreal, or aquatic, of usually carnivorous habits. 
The teéth have generally sharp and cutting edges, and the canines 
are well developed; the incisors are small, and four to six in . 
number. The number of toes is never less than four. There 
are usually strong and sharp claws. The clavicles are incomplete 
or absent. In the hand the scaphoid and lunar bones are always 
united. The brain is well developed, and the hemispheres are 
well convoluted. The stomach is always simple, while the 
caecum, if present, is always small. The members of this 
group have a deciduate and zonary placenta. 
The fewness of the characters used in the above definition is 
chiefly owing to the fact that the Seals and Sea-lions, although 
they are referable without a doubt to this order, have undergone 
in their metamorphosis into aquatic animals so many changes that 
some of the main features in the structure of their terrestrial 
relatives have been lost. This group will, however, be again 
characterised. We shall deal at present with the land division 
of the Carnivora, the CARNIVORA FISSIPEDIA as they are generally 
termed. The name is of course given to them to distinguish 
them from the corresponding division of the PinNrpepra. In 
the latter group the feet and hands are modified into “ fins”; in 
the other the fingers and toes are cleft, as with terrestrial beasts 
generally. 
1 For a general account of the osteology, see Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1869, p. 4 ; 
and for muscular anatomy, Windle and Parsons, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1897, p. 370, and 
1898, p. 152. 
