282 VERTEBRATA. 



found both in Asia and Africa; it is common in Persia, India, and Sumatra, and the country 

 around the Cape of Good Bope. A pair of them were in the Zoological Gardens a few years 

 since, and are described as having been exceedingly graceful and beautiful animals, purring when 

 pleased, and mewing when discontented. They seemed t<> possess none of the sly and skulking 

 habits of the cats; on the contrary, they were frank and confiding, and manifested great fond- 

 ness for their keeper. 



Fossil I'm ii'.v:. — Among the relics of extincl animals, those of the cats arc numerous and diver- 

 sified. In the second, or period of the tertiary formations, are found the first traces of 

 the larger fossil cats. Four species, some as large as the lion, are enumerated by Professor 

 ;.. In the third and fourth, or pliocene period, the bones of the herbivorous animals become 

 more abundant, and as the destroyers were needed, according to the universal system of na- 

 . to limit their increase, we find the bones of the carnivora to increase in proportion. 

 Among them, the geologists specify numerous species of cats similar to the tigers, lions, leopards, 

 and tiger-cats of our own time. 



It is interesting to observe, that while most of the large species of that age have become extinct, 

 the wild-cat, the progenitor of our domestic cat, which existed at that time, has survived. There 

 are very few animals known to r.s that can boast a lineage so ancient as Puss. A curious in- 

 stance of the strange operations of nature in these remote periods is mentioned by Dr. Lund in 

 h - Fossil Fauna of Brazil. In that country he discovered the bones of a species of hunting-leop- 

 ard — an animal now only known in Asia and Africa — of the size of the domestic cat! To this he 

 gave the name of Cynailurus minutus. He also discovered the fossil remains of an animal similar 

 to the jaguar, but of the size of the tiger, or even the lion, of the Old World. What curious 

 glimpses these revelations afford of those dim ages of the earth, lost to man, and unwritten and 

 unrecorded save by the < Jreator alone! And other facts unfold still more startling wonders to the 

 view. As we have before stated, the bones of many animals belonging to orders which are at the 

 present time strictly tropical, have been found in abundance in different parts of Northern Europe. 

 Among the Brazil fossil cats. Professor Owen enumerates four species, one of them, the Great 

 Cave-Tiger, /'< lis spelcea, being of the size of the jaguar. In connection with these facts, the same 

 author presents the following interesting observations: 



"It is too commonly supposed that the lion, the tiger, and the jaguar are animals peculiarly 

 pted t'> a tropical climate. The genus Felis is, however, represented by species in high north- 

 ern latitudes, and in all the intermediate countries to the equator; and there is no genus of Mam- 

 malia in which the unity of organization is more closely maintained, and in which, therefore, we 

 find so little ground in the structure of a species, though it may most abound at the present day 

 in the tropics, for inferring its special adaptation to a warmer climate. A more influential, and 

 indeed the chief cause or condition of the prevalence of the larger feline animals in any given 

 locality, is the abundance of the vegetable-feeding animals in a state of nature, with the accom- 

 panying thickets or deserts unfrequented by man. The Indian tiger follows the herds of ante- 

 lope and deer in the lofty Himalayan chain to the verge of perpetual snow. The same species 

 also passes thai great mountain barrier, and extends its ravages, with the leopard, the pant] 

 and the cheetah, into Bocharia, to the Altaian chain, and into Siberia as far as the fiftieth d< s 

 of latitude, preying principally on the wild horses and asses. It need not, therefore, excite sur- 

 prise that indications should have Keen discovered in the fossil relics of the ancient Mammalian 

 population of Europe, of a large feline animal, the contemporary of the mammoth, of the tichorhn 

 rhinoceros, and of the gigantic cave-bear and cave-hyena, and the slayer of the oxen, deer, and 

 equine quadrupeds that so abounded during the same epoch." 



