ARTICLE VIII. 
NOTES ON THH CANIDAD OF THE WHITH RIVER OLIGOCENE. 
BY W. B. SCOTT. 
(INVESTIGATION MADE UNDER A GRANT FROM THE ELIZABETH THOMPSON FUND OF THE A. A, A. S.) 
(Plates XIX and XX.) 
Read before the American Philosophical Society, February 4, 1898. 
The problems concerning the origin and mutual relationships of the various families 
into which the Carnivora Fissipedia are divided haye not yet been satisfactorily solved, 
principally because of the rarity of well-preserved fossils representing the earlier and 
more primitive members of the families. Especially obscure are the questions dealing with 
the derivation and systematic position of the Helid@, a family which by many authorities 
is regarded as occupying an entirely isolated position, not directly connected with any 
of the other groups. Hardly less puzzling, however, are many of the facts of canine 
phylogeny, such as the relations between the two great series of the wolves and the foxes, 
and the connection between the many divergent genera of successive geological horizons. 
No satisfactory answer to these questions can be given until many complete phylogenetic 
series of the Carnivora shall have been discovered, for so long as the numerous wide gaps 
which now separate the known members of the various series remain unbridged, those 
series must continue to be largely conjectural. At any time, new discoveries may call for 
an entire readjustment of our views regarding the lines of descent of the different 
families. 
Recently, there has come into my hands some uncommonly well-preserved material for 
the phylogenetic history of the Canide and is the occasion of the present paper. This 
material was obtained for the museum of Princeton University by Messrs. Gidley and Wells, 
who in the summer of 1896 made a collecting trip through the Bad Lands of Nebraska and 
South Dakota. They had the good fortune to discover certain unworked localities where 
the exposures of the White River Oligocene proved to be richly fossiliferous and, in par- 
ticular, yielded-many unusually complete specimens of primitive dogs. A study of this 
material has brought to ight some very remarkable and unexpected facts, which, to the 
writer at least, seem to require a revision of some current views upon the phylogeny of 
the carnivorous families, and to throw some light upon the obscure and difficult problems 
relating to the origin of the cats. The most valuable of these specimens are referable to 
