EXTINCT BEAR-LIKE GENERA 



621 



the lower jaw. As regards form, the molar teeth are distinguished from those of 

 other bears by their shorter and wider crowns ; this being most marked in the first 

 molar of the upper jaw, which is broader than it is long. The second upper molar 

 tooth agrees, however, with the corresponding tooth of other bears in being longer 

 than the one in front of it. The pattern formed by the tubercles on the crowns of 

 these teeth is exceedingly complex, and approaches to that obtaining in the panda, 

 among the raccoon family, to be noticed in the next chapter. 



The parti-colored bear is reported to inhabit the most inaccessible districts of 

 Eastern Tibet, and to be of extremely rare occurrence. Unfortunately we are at 

 present quite ignorant of its habits, although it is said to feed chiefly on roots and 

 the young shoots of bamboos, and to be entirely herbivorous. 



EXTINCT BEAR-LIKE GENERA 



At the close of the preceding volume it has been mentioned, that, unlike as 

 modern dogs and bears are to each other, yet both families are merely divergent 

 branches from a common stock. In that passage we referred only to those extinct 

 animals most nearly related to the modern dogs, and it was then shown that the 

 so-called amphicyon of the Miocene and upper part of the Eocene period appeared 

 to be a dog with one more pair of upper molar teeth than the true dogs, and ap- 

 proaching the bears in its plantigrade feet. We have now to allude to the extinct 

 genera more nearly allied to the modern bears. The first of these is a bear-like 

 animal from the superficial deposits of South America, known as the arctothere. 

 This animal, of which the left side of the palate is shown on a greatly-reduced 

 scale in the accompanying figure, 

 had the same number of teeth 

 as the true bears. The upper 

 molar teeth (the two on the 

 right side of the figure) are, how- 

 ever, relatively shorter and wider 

 than in the latter, and the second 

 is not greatly larger than the 

 first. Then, again, the upper 

 flesh-tooth (the third from the 

 right in the figure) is much larger 

 than in modern bears, and is thus 

 more like the corresponding teeth of other Carnivores. Further, the upper arm 

 bone, or humerus, has a perforation at its lower end, which is not found in any 

 living dog or bear, although occurring in the extinct amphicyon. 



Another type is the so-called hyaenarctus, of which large species occur in the 

 Siwalik hills of India and the Pliocene deposits of Europe, while smaller ones are 

 found in the European Miocene strata ; the two upper molar teeth of one of the 

 latter being shown in the woodcut on the next page. In these animals the upper 

 molars (as in our illustration) were sometimes oblong, with the second not longer 

 than the first; while in other cases they were more or less completely triangular 



THK LEFT HAT.F OF THE UPPER JAW OF THE ARCTO- 

 THERE AN EXTINCT SOUTH-AMERICAN BEAR-LIKE 



ANIMAL. (Much reduced.) 



