172 



FELIDJi. 



CARNIVORA. FELID&. 



Fig. 67. 



Nat. size. Grays, Essex. 



FELIS CATUS. Wild Cat. 



Felisferus, SERRES, Recherches sur les Ossemens des cavernes de 



Lunel-Veil, 4to, 1839, p. ] 19. 



FOSSIL remains of a feline animal about the size of the 

 Wild Cat were first noticed by Dr. Schmerling in his de- 

 scription of the Caverns in the Province of Liege, where 

 they were found in tolerable abundance. He assigns the 

 right ramus of a lower jaw, which exceeds by a few lines 

 the specimen figured above, to a species or variety which 

 he calls Fells Catus magna ; and the greater proportion of 

 the fossils, which include some entire skulls, to the Fells 

 Catus minuta. These, however, do not vary from the 

 standard of the existing Wild Cat more than the varieties 

 due to age or sex are now observed to do. 



MM. Marcel de Serres, Dubreuil, and Jean- Jean, have 

 enumerated a considerable collection of bones of the Wild 

 Cat discovered in the caverns of Lunel-Veil.* 



The most authentic specimens of the Felis Catus, in rela- 

 tion to their antiquity, which appear yet to have been ob- 

 tained from British localities, are the right ramus of the 

 lower jaw, retaining the canine tooth, discovered in the 

 brick-earth at Grays, Essex, and a corresponding part of 



* Loc. cit. 



