186 



MAMMALIA. 



posed that because the lion rarely, if ever, attacks the 

 lull-grown elephant, and still more rarely the rhino- 

 ceros or hippopotamus, that this is any invasion of his 

 kingship. Those gigantic animals seem, as we have 

 said, to be the remains of a former race, the Titans, 

 the Anakims, the giants, of the animal world in the 

 olden time ; and from all that now remains, as well as 

 from all that the record of the earth tells us, this ap- 

 pears to have been the golden age of the herbivorous 

 mammalia ; for coeval with what seemed to be the first 

 extinct of the new fossil races, there does not appear 

 to have been a single beast of prey. 



The family of the carnivora is very conveniently 

 divided into three tribes, two of the terrestrial, and 

 one inhabiting the waters. Cuvier has named them, 

 Plantigrada, or walkers on the entire sole of the foot ; 

 Digitigrada, or walkers on the toes only ; and Am- 

 phibia, or dwellers both in the water and on the land, 

 though the former is the locality in which they find 

 the chief part of their subsistence. 



Plantigrada. We have already mentioned that 

 the distinguishing character of this tribe is marching 

 on the flat feet, or applying the entire length of the 

 tarsus to the ground. By this means they have a 

 joint less in action while they walk, than those which 

 walk on the toes. This makes them appear shorter 

 in the legs than they really are, and also slower 

 walkers ; so that there are very few of them that can 

 follow prey which walks on the point of the foot, or 

 seize it in the chase. They have, however, some 

 counterbalancing advantages : the flat foot enables 

 them to walk more steadily, and also upon surfaces 

 \vhich would not bear an animal that walks on the 

 toes. They can also stand up on their hind feet, and 

 use their fore ones in seizing their prey ; and in some 

 of them, as in the bears for instance, there is so much 

 motion in the wrist joint, that the fore paw acts some- 

 thing in the manner of a clumsy hand, though there 

 is no opposed thumb, and the joints of the toes do 

 not bend so far as to enable them to take hold of a 

 slender object by acting against the heel of the tarsus. 

 Such as have the paw formed in this manner are not 

 inexpert climbers, and they can climb indiscriminately 

 upon trees and the asperities of rocks. The greater 

 number, though not the whole, are nocturnal animals ; 

 and in cold countries they pass the winter in a dor- 

 mant state. The whole of the race have five toes on 

 each of the feet ; they are, generally speaking, ground 

 animals, living in darkness and obscurity, and resem- 

 bling the insectivora in many of their habits, and par- 

 tially in their form ; but they are more powerful 

 animals, and sanguinary in their habits. 



Bears, racoons, coatis, badgers, gluttons, and a 

 few other genera, belong to this tribe. In general 

 they have a thick covering of fur to protect them 

 from the cool air of the night, or from the keen 

 atmosphere of those regions which the most powerful 

 of them inhabit. They may be said to be polar ani- 

 mals, or rather to have the locality most favourable 

 for their development in cold regions, though there 

 are a few in warm countries. Their teeth vary in 

 the different species ; some, as the bears, have the 

 cheek teeth all tuberculous, and the carnivorous teeth 

 small ; while others have the carnivorous teeth and 

 the false molars much better developed. The bears, 

 which have the mouth of the former of these struc- 

 tures, may be considered as the least carnivorous of 

 the tribe ; and the gluttons, which have it of the latter, 

 as the most carnivorous. The whole tribe arc ani- 



mals of unpleasant appearance ; and their flesh is, 

 generally speaking, rank and unwholesome ; but the 

 covering, of the polar ones especially, is valuable on 

 account of the strength of the skin, and the length 

 and closeness of the fur. 



Digitigrada. These are the proper beasts of prey 

 of the land ; and the greater number of them capture 

 their prey in a more bold and daring manner. In a 

 state of nature, few or none of them subsist upon any 

 thing but animal food. They do not, however, inva- 

 riably kill what they eat, for not a few of them feed 

 readily on carrion although it is in a putrid state, 

 whilst some dig in the earth for animal substances 

 which are buried there. Such as feed on carrion 

 have a keener sense of smell than such as do not. 



This tribe therefore perform a double operation in 

 nature that of regulating the numbers of the more 

 peaceable mammalia, and that of clearing the earth of 

 offensive substances ; just as the plantigrade carni- 

 vora perform a double function in eating animal and 

 vegetable substances. Some have only one tuber- 

 culous tooth behind the carnivorous one, and others 

 have two ; and there are others again in which the 

 carnivorous tooth in the upper jaw is very small, and 

 that in the under jaw entirely wanting. The last are 

 the most carnivorous of the whole, but the first are 

 scarcely less so ; and though they are not furnished 

 with retractile or clutching claws, they can give chase 

 to their prey, by a peculiar sort of leaping march, in 

 the performance of which they are greatly assisted by 

 the length and elasticity of the spine. 



The species, and also the individuals of many of 

 them, are very numerous ; and in one or other of their 

 genera, they are distributed through all parts of the 

 world ; but the greater number of them, though not 

 the whole, disappear before the progress of culti- 

 vation, faster than they are actually hunted down by 

 man. 



Strictly speaking they consist of several sections, 

 each of which admits of sub-division into genera. 

 The chief of these sections are martens, which are 

 exceedingly numerous in some countries, dogs, civets, 

 hyaenas, and cats. In their present geographical dis- 

 tribution, they inhabit from the polar to the equa- 

 torial regions, nearly in the order in which we have 

 mentioned the sections, though there are some of each 

 section found in almost every latitude. The martens 

 are most numerous in the cold countries of the north ; 

 and though the skins of other animals are valued as 

 furs, the martens are the fur animals properly so 

 called. The native locality of the dog is not known ; 

 for it should seem that man has taken possession of 

 the whole race. The fox, which is a sub-genus of the 

 dog, is, however, found from the extreme north to the 

 warm latitudes. The civets and the allied genera are 

 inhabitants of warm countries. This is also the case 

 with the hyaenas, but the cats are distributed into all 

 latitudes. The particulars of the different sections or 

 genera of these animals are detailed so fully under 

 their respective names in the alphabetical order, that 

 it is unnecessary to add any more respecting them in 

 this general sketch. 



Amphibia. It is necessary to bear in mind that the 

 amphibia of Cuvier's system are different from those 

 of the earlier naturalists, and also that the common 

 notion of an amphibious animal, that of its living with 

 equal ease on land or in the water, does not, in the 

 sense in which it is very apt to be taken, apply to any 

 marnrmdia,or indeed to any animal whatsoever, in any 



