58 BULLETIN NO. VII. 



geneous in essential characters. From the weasel, to the bear 

 or lion, we may look without finding any animal so peculiar 

 that there is any difficulty in recognizing affinities with its fel- 

 lows. 



The typical carnivore has a more or less triangular head 

 with pointed muzzle, armed with long vibrissse. The ears are 

 pointed and movable, while the eyes are large, or at least of 

 fair size, (the bears do not conform to this type), and are di- 

 rected forward. The body is powerful, if not graceful and 

 lithe, as in most cases. Limbs are of moderate length and 

 adapted for progression, (but rarely useful for prehension). 

 The claws are powerful, and in the highest groups retractile, 

 so that the keen points and edges are not worn dull by walk- 

 ing. This is accomplished by the peculiar position of the last 

 bone of the toe. There are usually five toes on each foot and 

 the reduction never affects more than one toe on a foot. 

 Though the bones of the fore arm are not united, they are nev- 

 ertheless not adapted for rotary motions of pronation, etc., in 

 most groups. 



The bears touch the ground with the whole sole of each foot, 

 or are, in other words, plantigrade. Between this condition, 

 and that of the cat, where only the toes touch the ground in 

 walking, or when progression is entirely digitigrade, there is 

 a complete series of intermediate links. The former method is 

 held to be the primitive one for the order and permits of great 

 freedom in the use of the extremities, but it is also accompa- 

 nied with a certain heaviness and even clumsiness, which is 

 avoided by the digitigrate foot. An animal which must run 

 swiftly, or spring upon its prey from a distance, requires the 

 additional leverage furnished by a long heel. 



Tlie brain is well developed, having several convolutions and 

 a large corpus callosum. The cerebral hemispheres do not 

 overlap the cerebellum, however. The development of the 

 organs of sense reaches the maximum in this order. The eyes 

 are usually specially adapted to nocturnal vision, so that, al- 

 though the contractile iris adjusts the eye to strong daylight, 

 the darkness of night is no obstacle to the chase of prey. The 

 following anatomical characters may be added. The digestive 

 tract is comparatively simple, the stomach never being com- 

 posed of more than one chamber, and the coecum, if present, 

 is small. The clavicles are absent or very rudimentary, being 

 most highly developed in the cats. The atlas vertebra has two 

 large transverse processes. The zygomatic arches are usu- 



