GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF CARNIVORA. 235 



with other ingredients and eaten as soup. Of the skin of the 

 seal they stand in the greatest need ; because they must cover 

 with seal-skins both the large and small boats, in which they 

 travel and seek their provisions. They must also cut out of them 

 their thongs and straps, and cover their tents with them, without 

 which they could not subsist in summer. No man, therefore, can 

 pass for a right Greenlander, who cannot catch seals. This ia 

 the ultimate end they aspire at, in all their device and labour from 

 their childhood, up." 



205. There are some points of much interest, in the Geogra- 

 phical distribution of the Carnivora at present inhabiting the 

 globe; as well as in the Geological distribution of the fossil 

 remains, which indicate the races that existed in its several 

 quarters, at former epochs. We cannot but be struck, when we 

 consider the distribution of the typical family, the FELID^J, 

 with their almost entire restriction to the tropical regions, and to 

 the countries bordering on them ; and with their consequent 

 absence from Europe, and from the northern parts of Asia and 

 America, the comparatively small and feeble Wild Cat being 

 the only representative of the Lions, Tigers, Panthers, Jaguars, 

 &c., of the tropics. The same may be said of the family 

 VIVERRID^E ; of which the Genet is the only European repre- 

 sentative, whilst the tropical regions contain not only the Civets 

 and Ichneumons, with many allied species, but the savage and 

 formidable Hyaena and Proteles. On the other hand, the 

 CANID.E and the MUSTELID^J are more abundant in temperate 

 climates ; and the PHOCID^E in the colder regions ; whilst the 

 URSIDJE seem to have been everywhere distributed, though they 

 are now being gradually expelled from Europe and North 

 America by the increasing human population. 



206. Now there is abundant evidence, derived from the 

 fossil remains which occur in the newer tertiary strata (those 

 that lie above the chalk), in gravel beds, and in caves, that the 

 larger Feline and Viverrine animals were formerly distributed 



