12 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS. 



Pier-case 3. model of the skull (Fig. 3) is placed on the top shelf of 

 Pier-case 3, must have been about as large as a donkey. 

 It clearly did not live in trees, and may perhaps have been 

 adapted for an aquatic life. The bony rims of the orbits are 

 curiously produced like tliose of a hippopotamus. 



Order II.— CARNIVORA. 



SuB-oiiDEK 1. — Carnivora Vera. 



Pier-ease 3. The true cats or Pelidse are well represented among 

 fossils, which trace back the ancestry of this highest surviving 

 tribe of flesh-eaters to Miocene European animals much 

 resembling the existing Cryptoxtroda of Madagascar. Felis 

 itself first appears in the Middle or Upper ]\Iiocene of 

 Europe, and culminated in the great ca^•e-lion, which is 

 probably only a variety of the existing Felis leo of Africa 

 and Asia. Among the numerous remains of this animal 

 in Pier-case 3 may be particularly noticed the fine skull 

 obtained by Mr. Flaxman Spurrell from the Pleistocene 

 l>rick-earth of Crayford, Kent. There are also jaws and 

 bones of a lynx from a cavern in Gales Dale, Derby.shire. 

 The small ancestral Felidfs are represented by jaws of 

 Pseuddelurus and Proselurus from the Miocene of France. 



"^cst^'^H^Ti^' ^till more deadly than tlie Felidre must liave Ijeen the 

 extinct Nimravidse or Machaerodontidse, of which many 

 were as large as lions, with over-grown up}>er canine teeth 

 and with fore limbs as effective as gi'a])pliug irons. A plaster 

 cast of a complete skeleton of Machmrodiis from the pampa 

 of South America (now in the National Museum, Buenos 

 Aires), is placed on Stand D, and there are various remains 

 of this and allied genera in Pier-case 3. Machserodus 

 is often named the " saljre-toothed tiger," in allusion to its 

 large laterally-compressed upper canine teeth, which have 

 finely serrated edges. The mouth seems to have opened 

 to an abnormal extent to permit the effective use of these 

 terrible weapons (Fig. 4). As shown by the fragmentary 

 fossils, Machserodus is represented first in the Miocene of 

 France and Germany ; next in the Pliocene of France, 

 England, Italy, Greece, Hungary, the Isle of Samos, Persia, 

 and India ; and finally by the largest species in the Pleis- 

 tocene of France, C^ermany, Italy, England, North America, 

 Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina. Teeth from Kent's Cavern 

 and the Creswell Caves prove its association with the cave 



