EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT. 17 



The Family Mustelidae is cosmopolitan from the Middle Eo- 

 cene, and, as its members have always been numerous in America, 

 we should expect to find other equally distinct forms here, but, 

 as a matter of fact, we are indebted to Eurasia for most of the 

 well-known forms, the otter, the wolverine, the fisher, the marten, 

 the mink and the weasel. 



RACCOONS. 



The Old World family of civets, Viverridae, is entirely un- 

 known in America, and its place is taken, on this continent, by the 

 peculiar family of the raccoons, Procyonidae, which are of North 

 American extraction, and have no relatives in the Old World* 

 The line of ancestry of the raccoons leads back on this continent 

 in a series, of which we have the most important links, to certain 

 primitive Canidae of the Oligocene. 



The Bassariscus, one of the most interesting of the raccoons, 

 is probably an almost unaltered survivor of one of these primitive 

 forms. 



THE WOLVES AND FOXES. 



The Canidae, like the Mustelidae, swarm in North America 

 from the Oligocene down, and in fact are cosmopolitan. The 

 evidence of the direct descent of the more typical forms is incon- 

 clusive, but the species of the Upper Miocene, in North America, 

 are in general more nearly related to living South American and 

 certain Old World types than our present wolves and foxes. This 

 is as it should be, and is another evidence of the migration of the 

 old types southward, and their replacement in North America 

 by later immigrants. 



The Virginia gray fox, Urocyon, forms the only distinctly 

 American genus of this family, and is possibly a survivor of the 

 pre-glacial fauna. Our other wolves, Canis, and foxes, Vulpes, 

 are close relatives of Eurasian forms. 



THE FELINES OR CATS. 



The remaining family of the Carnivores, the Felidae, is also 

 well-nigh cosmopolitan in distribution, and the species that form 



* Panda is to be referred to the bears rather than to the raccoons. 



