American Big Game in its Haunts 



Cats are distinguished from the remainder of 

 this section by the shortness of the skull, and reduc- 

 tion of the teeth to thirty, there being but one true 

 molar on each side, that of the upper jaw being so 

 minute that it is probably getting ready to 

 disappear. 



Civets, genets, and ichneumons are small as com- 

 pared with most cats; they are fairly well distin- 

 guished by skull and tooth characters; their claws 

 are never fully retractile, and many have scent 

 glands, as in the civets. No member of this family 

 is American. 



Hyasnas have the same dental formula as cats, 

 but their teeth are enormously strong and massive, 

 in relation to their function of crushing bone. 



No carnivore has teeth so admirably adapted to 

 a diet of flesh as the cat, and, in fact, it may be 

 doubted if among all mammals, it has a superior 

 in structural fitness to its life habits in general. 



The Felida are an exceedingly uniform group, 

 although they do present minor differences; thus, 

 some species have the orbits completely encircled 

 by bone, while in most of them these are more or 

 less widely open behind; in some the first upper 

 premolar is absent, and some have a round pupil, 

 while in others it is elliptical or vertical, but if 

 there is a key to the apparently promiscuous dis- 



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