234 



THE FLESH-EATERS. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION AND DESCENT OF THE 



FLESH-EATERS. 



The geographical distribution of the Carni- 

 vora presents many characteristic features. 



Two regions, the Antilles and Australia, 

 possess no native carnivores. Doubts may be 

 raised as regards the latter, which at the time 

 of its discovery by Europeans was inhabited 

 by a species of wild dog, the dingo. But it 

 is almost certain that this dog does not 

 originally belong to Australia, but that it was 

 brought thither by the first settlers, the 

 ancestors of the Australian savages, and 

 afterwards ran wild. As for the American 

 islands, we are quite sure that no trace of a 

 native carnivore has ever been found there. 

 But this absence of carnivores in the two 

 regions mentioned can excite no surprise, 

 for with the exception of a few bats and 

 rodents, probably imported, Australia has not 

 a single placental mammal, and the Antilles 

 have, in addition to a few immigrant repre- 

 sentatives of the two orders just named, only 

 the Solenodons, a special family of the 

 Insectivora. 



The large island of Madagascar is some- 

 what better supplied with representatives of 

 this group. Besides the fossa (Cryptoprocta), 

 that remarkable type whose affinities we have 

 indicated above, Madagascar contains some 

 peculiar genera (Galidia, Galidictis), which 

 in all their characters belong to the Viverrida. 

 Now this family, one of the oldest among the 

 Carnivora, as we shall see in the sequel, 

 inhabits all the warm regions of Africa and 

 Asia, not excluding the Sunda Islands. It 

 extends, indeed, to the countries bordering 

 on the Mediterranean, and two species, the 

 common genet and an ichneumon, belonging 

 to the family, even cross the Straits of Gib- 

 raltar; but since the Viverrida are entirely 

 confined to the Old World, their presence on 

 the great African island can be understood. 



The Hyaenas also belong to the warm parts 

 of the Old World, and more particularly to 

 the African continent; yet the domain of the 

 striped hyaena extends to India and there to 

 the foot of the Himalayas, while the other 

 two species as well as the aard-wolf (Proteles) 

 are restricted to the mainland of Africa. 

 Some have sought to explain the presence 

 of the striped hyaena in Asia Minor, Persia, 

 and India, as due to an immigration from 

 Africa; but since fossil hyaenas occur in the 

 Miocene deposits of the Sewalik Hills, it is 

 more probable that the present species is a 

 direct descendant of these old forms, which 

 has not changed its seat, but has rather 

 extended its domain westwards by migrations 

 in earlier geological periods. 



Many of the Small Bears of Asia and 

 America can be shown to be specially localized. 

 The cacamizli, the raccoons, coatis, and 

 kinkajous or honey-bears are exclusively 

 American, while the binturong, the panda, 

 and his large cousin the ailuropus inhabit 

 only the high mountains of Tibet and the 

 Himalayas. 



The typical Large or True Bears inhabit 

 the cold and temperate parts of both hemi- 

 spheres. In the warm regions, on the other 

 hand, are found more or less abnormal forms, 

 such as the sloth-bear and the small climbing 

 bears with a light-coloured neck-fillet. But 

 the whole of Africa is without bears, and 

 tropical America would be in the same 

 condition were it not that the great chain of 

 the Cordilleras possesses its spectacled bear, 

 which approaches the other tropical forms. 



The Felida, Canida, and Mustelida swarm 

 in all regions inhabited by carnivores, with 

 the exception of Madagascar, the Antilles, 

 and Australia. It cannot even be said that 

 many individual genera are peculiar to 



