472 THE CAT. [CHAP. xin. 



has not a number of small, parallel pulp cavities ; and from the 

 sloths, in that their digits are not so closely hound together by skin 

 up to the roots of such enormous curved claws as to reduce the paws 

 to mere hooks by which the body may be suspended. 



From the Cheiroptera all members of the cat's order differ in not 

 having the fingers enormously produced and webbed so as to form 

 a pair of true wings, enabling their possessor really to fly and not 

 merely to flit like a so-called flying-squirrel or flying opossum. 



The Carnivora differ from the Proboscidea in not possessing a 

 long trunk or proboscis, and in not having large pendent ears, huge 

 incisor teeth, and an enormous ca3cum. Also in having less con- 

 voluted cerebral hemispheres, two canines above and below, and 

 digits which are furnished with claws, i.e. are unguiculate. 



The Primates are all distinguishable from the Carnivora in that 

 they are monodelphous mammals with either the pollex or hallux or 

 both, so formed as to be opposable to the other digits and suitable 

 for grasping. They have also a more or less developed third or 

 "posterior" cornu to each lateral ventricle. None of them are 

 powerful enough to be able to successfully contend with the largest 

 of the cats or bears, and but for his intelligence, man himself would 

 be quite unequal either to fly from or destroy such creatures. Even 

 as it is, many human lives are annually destroyed by the largest 

 carnivora. In the Primates, the placenta is never in the form of a 

 zone round the ovum. 



The Carnivora differ from the TIngulata in that they have often 

 five (always at least four) digits to each paw. Their digits are also 

 unguiculate and never sheathed in horny hoofs. Their molar teeth 

 also are either cutting or simply tuberculate, while the foetus is 

 developed by means of a deciduate placenta almost always in the 

 form of a zone round the ovum. The Carnivora also are always 

 digitigrade or plantigrade, never " unguligrade," i.e., they never 

 walk upon enormous nails (or " hoofs " ) as is the^case with almost 

 all the Ungulates. 



The Carnivora differ from the Rodentia in that they have canine 

 teeth and have not got large incisors growing from permanent pulps. 

 They also have the glenoid cavity for the mandibular condyle trans- 

 versely, and not, as in Rodents, more or less antero-posteriorly 

 extended. Moreover, though the Eodents have a deciduate placenta, 

 it is never zonary. 



The Insectivora differ from the Carnivora by their less perfectly 

 developed brain, not only the cerebellum but even the corpora 

 quadrigemina being left uncovered by the small hemispheres, which 

 are smooth or hardly convoluted. They have, besides, a relatively 

 small corpus callosum and a large anterior commissure. Their molar 

 teeth also have generally more numerous and sharply pointed pro- 

 minences than in the Carnivora, and their molars are not differen- 

 tiated into premolars and sectorial, followed by a tubercular form 

 of tooth. Their bony palate is often defectively ossified, which it is 



