CARNARIA. 99 
Fexis, Linn. 
Of all the Carnaria the Cats are the most completely and powerfully 
armed. ‘Their short and round muzzle, short jaws, and particularly their 
retractile nails, which, being raised perpendicularly, and hidden between 
the toes, when at rest, by the action of elastic ligament, lose neither point 
nor edge, render them most formidable animals, the larger species espe- 
cially. They have two false molars above, and two below: their superior 
carnivorous tooth has three lobes, and a blunted heel on the inner side, 
the inferior, two pointed and trenchant lobes, without any heel: they have 
but a very small tuberculous tooth above, without any thing to correspond 
to it below. ‘The species of this genus are very numerous and various 
with regard to size and colour, though they are all similar with respect to 
form. We can only subdivide them by referring to the difference of size 
and the length of the hair, characters of but little importance. 
At the head of the genus we find 
F. leo, L.; Buff. VILL. i. 11. (The Lion). Distinguished by 
its uniform tawny colour, the tuft of hair at the end of the tail, and 
the flowing mane which clothes the head, neck, and shoulders of the 
male. Of all beasts of prey, this is the strongest and most coura- 
geous. Formerly scattered through the three parts of the old world, 
it seems at present to be confined to Africa and some of the neigh- 
bouring parts of Asia. The head of the Lion is more square than 
that of the following species. 
Tigers are large, short-haired species, most commonly marked 
with vivid spots. 
F. tigris, Buff. VIII. ix. (The Royal Tiger). As large as the 
Lion, but the body is longer, and the head rounder; of a lively fawn 
colour above; a pure white below, irregularly crossed with black 
stripes; the most cruel of all quadrupeds, and the scourge of the 
East Indies. Such are his strength and the velocity of his move- 
ments, that during the march of armies he has been seen to seize a 
soldier while on horseback, and bear him to the depths of the forest, 
without affording a possibility of rescue. 
F. onca, L.; Azzar. pl. ix; Fred. Cuv. Mammif. (The Jaguar). 
Nearly the size of the Royal Tiger, and almost as dangerous; a lively 
gnawed, and even fractured by particular teeth. Amongst the remains were teeth 
and excrements of the Hyznas also, the existence of which has been explained on 
the principle that it is the ascertained habit of Hyznas to devour the dead bodies 
of their own species, being, like wolves, gregarious, and hunting mostly in packs. 
Similar fossil remains of supposed antediluvian Hyznas have been found in France 
and Germany, in caves; but the circumstances under which they have been disco- 
vered lead to the conclusion that the bones either belong to animals that had fallen 
through fissures opening into these caves, or were carried by water through subter- 
ranean canals. The species, which is unknown as it existed previously to the deluge, 
is called H. Spelwa, Cave Hyena, and by means of that exact knowledge of the laws 
of animal organization which he so eminentiy possessed, Cuvier has been able to 
build up afresh the whole of the structure of this species, and has given the following 
description of the unseen animal in another of his great works :—size larger by a 
third proportion than the Hyena rayee, Canis hyenus; the muzzle, however, is 
shorter, and the teeth must have been much larger, from the appearance of their 
fragments, which consist but of stumps, than those of the existing races.—Enc. Ep. 
H2 
