274 ZOOLOGY. 



rows under ground, have a foetid odour, and attack only small 

 animals. Species of the fox are to be found in all parts of 

 the world. Those of cold countries give a fur which is much 

 sought after. 



[Notwithstanding the general resemblance of the fox and 

 domestic dog, a resemblance extending even to the structure of 

 the interior and the skeleton, they are yet so distinct from each 

 other as to entitle them to be placed in different genera. Recent 

 experiments seem to prove that they do not breed with each 

 other, so that they have in reality no consanguinity. The know- 

 ledge of this unexpected fact we owe to direct experiment, and 

 it is doubtful if science could ever have enabled the naturalist 

 or anatomist to have made the discovery. The bearing of this 

 fact on future palaeontological discoveries is extremely important. 

 A fossil skeleton might be found strictly resembling that of the 

 fox, the hasty theorist would declare it to have been a fox, and 

 that therefore the present geological era must have been of vast 

 duration ; another would pronounce it to have been a dog, whereas 

 in all probability it was neither one nor the other, but the remains 

 of an animal having no place in the present order of things. All 

 these errors originate in the unhappy attempts of modern 

 geologists to restore, as they call it, the extinct animals. K. K.] 



All the carnivora of which we have spoken, as well as many 

 others the genette and civet, for example walk on the ball of 

 the toes, the tarsus being raised. Hence the name of digiti- 

 grades ; and to this they owe their upright walk and rapidity. 

 Bears and badgers, in walking, place the entire sole of the 

 foot on the ground : hence they are called plantigrades. 

 Their movements are slow, and they lead a nocturnal life. 



Bears are large, heavy animals, thick and short. The tail 

 is short, the limbs thick ; but they are animals of great 

 strength and sagacity. The form of their extremities enables 

 them to climb trees very readily, and t<$ sit erect on their 

 hind quarters. Some swim well, a quality they perhaps owe 

 to the fat with which their bodies abound. Of all the carni- 

 vora, they are those least restricted to an animal diet ; in fact, 

 they are omnivorous, for which, indeed, the character of their 

 teeth, almost all tuberculated, evidently adapts them ; such 

 teeth being more fitted to bruise roots and grains than to tear 

 the flesh of animals. Vegetable food is their regular diet, 

 and they prefer honey, of which they rob the bees, being well 

 protected from their stings by the roughness of their hides. 

 The greater number of the bears live in the forests, but one 



