American Big Game in its Haunts 



No other cat has so extensive a range as Felis 

 concolor and its close allies, variously known as 

 puma, couguar and mountain lion, which extends 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from latitude 

 fifty-five or sixty north, to the extreme southern end 

 of the continent. As far as is known, it is a re- 

 cent development, for no very similar remains 

 appear previous to post-tertiary deposits. 



Bears of the genus Ursus are of no great an- 

 tiquity in a geological sense, for we have no 

 knowledge of them earlier than the Pliocene of 

 Europe, and even later in America, but fossils be- 

 coming gradually less bear-like and approximating 

 toward the early type from which dogs also prob- 

 ably sprung, go back to the early Tertiary 

 creodonts. 



Cats, as we have seen, are chiefly tropical, while 

 bears, with two exceptions, are northern, one 

 species inhabiting the Chilian Andes, while the 

 brown bear of Europe extends into North Africa 

 as far as the Atlas Mountains. 



The family Procyonida contains the existing 

 species which appear to be nearest of kin to bears. 

 These are all small and consist of the well-known 

 raccoon, the coatis, the ring-tailed bassaris and the 

 kinkajou, all differing from bears in varying de- 

 tails of tooth and other structures. The curious 



94 



