CARN1VORA. 401 



l>iv molars reduced to two in the upper jaw, one or two in the lower jaw, 

 and the molars represented only by one in each jaw. The upper sectorial 

 tooth is much elongated, and has almost lost its inner tubercle, so that it 

 becomes the most powerful cutting tooth known. The lower canine is 

 reduced, as usual, but stouter than the incisors, and with a sharp, finely 

 serrated hinder border. Complete skeletons from the Pampa Formation 

 (Pleistocene) of Argentina, South America, prove the animal to have 

 possessed long, powerful limbs, with shorter feet than those of Felis, but 

 with completely retractile claws. There are five digits on the fore foot, 

 but apparently only four on the hind foot of the South American species 

 (.!/. neogasus) ; and the humerus of the same animal is destitute of an 



FIG. 225. 



Afachterodus (Smilodon) neogceus; skull and mandible, right lateral aspect, one- 

 seventh nat. size. Pleistocene ; Buenos Aires, Argentine Republic. 



entepicondylar foramen. More fragmentary but characteristic remains 

 represent Machcerodus in the Miocene of France and Germany; in the 

 Pliocene of France, Italy, Greece, Hungary, the Isle of Samos, Persia, 

 and India ; and in the Pleistocene of France, Germany, Italy, England, 

 North America, Ecuador, and Brazil. In England it first appears in the 

 Cromer Forest Bed of Norfolk, while detached teeth prove its contempo- 

 raneity with Cave Man in Kent's Cavern, near Torquay, and in the 

 Creswell Caves near Worksop on the borders of Derbyshire. 



Sub-Order 3. Pinnipedia. 



As already mentioned (p. 384), the remarkable Creodont 

 Patriofelis exhibits some features in its skeleton which have 

 been regarded as suggestive of the seals ; and it is quite 

 possible that the early Tertiary ancestors of the Pinnipedia 

 were lake-dwelling animals which eventually wandered into the 

 w. 26 



