KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[April, 1905. 



ZOOLOGICAL, 



By K. LvttKKER. 



An Asiatic Ocelot. 



The stTiall marbled cats known as ocelots {Felis pardalis) 

 have hitherto been regarded as an exclusively New World 

 type, where they are most abundant in Central and South 

 America. Re-examination of the Central Asiatic species 

 known as Felis tristis has. however, led the present writer to 

 believe that it is an Old World representative of the ocelots. 

 If this view be correct, it will serve to show that the ocelots 

 (as has always been supposed to be the case) oriRinally entered 

 America by way of Bering Strait. It is also urged that the 

 clouded leopard IK lubulosa) and the marbled cat (F. mar- 

 moruta) of the Indo-Malay countries are also members of the 

 ocelot group, but of a more aberrant type. 

 • * « 



Arboreal Ancestral Mammals. 



The majority of modern marsupials, it has been stated, 

 exhibit in the structure of their feet traces of the former 

 opposability of the thumb and great toe to the other digits ; 

 and it has accordingly been urged that all marsupials are 

 descended from arboreal ancestors. This doctrine is now re- 

 ceiving wide spread acceptation among anatomical naturalists, 

 and in a recent issue of the American Satiiralist (November 

 and December, 1904. p. 811) Dr. W. D. Matthew, a well-known 

 trans-Atlantic pala;ontologist, considers himself provisionally 

 justified in so extending it as to include all mammals. That 

 is to say. he believes that, with the exception of the duckbill 

 and the echidna, the mammalian class as a whole can lay 

 claim to descent from small arboreal forms. This conclusion 

 is, of course, almost entirely based upon palsontological con- 

 siderations ; and these, in the author's opinion, admit of our 

 coming to the conclusion that all modern placental and mar- 

 supial mammals are descended from a common ancestral 

 stock, of which the members were small in bodily si^e. 

 To follow Dr. .Matthew in his hypothetical reconstruction of 

 these ancestral mammals would obviously be out of place on 

 the present occasion ; and it must suffice to say that, in addi- 

 tion to their small size, they were characterised by the presence 

 of five toes to each foot, of which the first was more or less 

 completely opposable to the other four. The evidence in 

 fax-our of this primitive opposability is considerable. In all 

 the groups which are at present arboreal, the palsontological 

 evidence goes to show that their ancestors were likewise so ; 

 while, in the case of modern terrestrial forms, the structure 

 of the wrist and ankle joints tends to approximate to the 

 arboreal type as we recede in time. The available evidence, so 

 far as it goes, is therefore decidedly in favour of Dr. Matthew's 

 contention. 



The author next discusses the proposition from another 

 standpoint — namely, the condition of the earth's surface in 

 Cretaceous times. His theory is that in the early Cretaceous 

 epoch the animals of the world were mostly aerial, amphibious, 

 aquatic, or arboreal, the flora of the land being undeveloped 

 as compared with its present state. On the other hand, 

 towards the close of the Cretaceous epoch (when the chalk 

 was in course of deposition), the spread of a great upland 

 flora vastly extended the territory available for mammalian 

 life. Accordingly, it was at this epoch that the small ancestral 

 insectivorous mammals first forsook their arboreal habitat to 

 try a life on the open plains, where their descendants develo- 

 ped on the one hand into the carnivorous and other groups in 

 which the toes are armed with nails or claws, and on the 

 other into the hoofed group, inclusive of such monsters as the 

 elephant and the giraffe. 



• » » 



A Fossil Loris. 



The lorises or slow-lemurs, frequently miscalled sloth.s, are 

 peculiar to the Indian and Malay countries, where they are 

 represented by the slow-lorises (Xyclicehtis) and the much 

 smaller slender lorises ([.oris) ; the latter being restricted to 

 Southern India and Ceylon. Their nearest living allies are 

 the pottos iPcrodiclitus), of West Africa. Recently the well- 

 known French naturalist. Mr. G. Grandidicr, has described 

 an extinct lemur from the Tertiary of France, which he believes 



to be nearly related to the slow-lorises, and has accordingly 

 named Pronycticebus gaudryi. If the determination be correct 

 (and the figures illustrating the memoir seem to indicate that 

 it is), the discovery is of considerable interest, as tending to 

 Imk up the modern faunas of Southern India and West 

 .Africa (which possess many features in common) with the 

 Tertiary fauni of Europe. 



* * * 



The Lion in Greece. 



Some time ago Professor A. B. Meyer, the Director of the 

 Zoological Museum at Dresden, published an article on the 

 alleged existence of the lion in historical times in Gr?ece. A 

 translation of this article appears in the recently issued 

 .Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution. As regards 

 the mention of that animal in Homer, the author is of opinion 

 that the writer of the Iliad was probably acquainted with the 

 lion, but this does not prove its former existence in Greece. 

 The accounts given by Herodotus and Aristotle merely go to 

 show that about 500 B.C. lions existed in some part of Eastern 

 Europe. The Greek name for the lion is very ancient, and 

 this suggests, although by no means demonstrates, that it 

 refers to an animal indigenous to the country. Although fossil 

 bones of the lion have been recorded, no recent remainsof that 

 animal are known from Greece ; but this cannot be regarded 

 as a matter of any importance in connection with the question. 

 On the wliole. although the evidence is not decisive, it seems 

 probable that lions did exist in Greece at the time of Herodotus; 

 and it is quite possible that tlie representation of a lion-chase 

 incised on a Mycenean dagger may have been taken from 

 life. In prehistoric times the lion was spread over the greater 

 part of Europe ; and if, as is very probable, the so called 

 Fi7(5 titrox be inseparable, its range also included the greater 

 part of North America. 



It may be mentioned that the journal above-mentioned also 

 contains a translation of an article giving an account of the 

 discovery of the mammoth carcase recentl)- set up in tlie St. 

 Petersburg Museum. In publisliing translations of articles 

 of such general interest as the abovc,the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion is doing good service to science, for although many of 

 us have a more or less intimate acquaintance with German, it 

 is but few who can read Russian or Norwegian. 

 » * » 



Fish-Lizards. 



Many years ago the present writer contributed to 

 " Knowledge " a popular account of the extinct marine 

 reptiles known as ichthyosaurs, or fish-lizards. The saincgroup 

 has afforded to Professor H. 1". Osborn the subject for an 

 exquisitely illustrated article in the January number of the 

 Century Mcif^azinc. These creatures, as anyone may satisfy 

 himself by a visit to the Natural History Museum, had 

 paddle-like limbs of a most peculiar type ; but Profes;;or 

 Oiborn is of opinion that these may be derived from a limb of 

 the type of that of the living New Zealand tuatera, a primitive 

 terrestrial lizard. Owing to the remarkable state of preserva- 

 tion of some of their fossil remains, we know not only tliat fish- 

 lizards had a fin on the back, and another at the end of the 

 tail, but likewise I hat they possessed a smooth skin and pro- 

 duced living yoimg; the latter feature being an adaptation to 

 their purelv aquatic mode of life. 



* * * 



Nfcw Species of Wapiti. 



In the Procadini^s of the Hiolngical Society of Washington 

 of F'ebruary 2 Dr. C. H. Merriaiu describes the wapiti deer, 

 or elk (as it is miscalled in .America), of California as a new 

 species, under the n.iine of Ccrvu^ nannoihs. It differs from 

 the typical wapiti of the Rocky Mountains by its inferior 

 size, relatively shorter legs, and paler colour, the front of the 

 limbs beint' golden tawny in place of black. Of course this 

 animal is not a species in the sense in which that term is 

 employed by many naturalists, but merely a local race. 

 « » » 



The Paddles of the Fish -Lizards. 



Mr. J. C. Merriam, in the Amcriciiii Journal of Seiencc for 

 January, shows that so early as the period of the Trias, or New 

 Red S.andston(-,the fish-lizards, or ichthyosaurs, displayed two 

 distinct types of paddles ; the one broad and the other narrow. 

 The broad-paddled type (hiixosaurus) is considered to be the 



