84 THE TOWER MENAGERIE. 
being soft and velvety to the touch, instead of rough and 
pointed as in the Hyznas and Cats. They have five 
toes to each of the fore feet, of which only the four 
outermost touch the ground, the fifth being always more 
or less elevated. On the hind feet the number of the 
toes is no more than four, for although the rudiment of 
a fifth is distinctly visible in the skeleton, it is rarely 
observable in the living animal. On these toes they 
constantly support themselves in walking, the soles of 
their feet, or rather that part of the legs which corres- 
ponds to the soles of plantigrade animals, never being 
applied to the surface of the ground on which they 
tread. Their claws are blunt, strong, but little curved, 
and not at all retractile; and their use is evidently 
limited to turning up the earth. Their muzzle is more 
or less elongated to afford space for the ample series of 
lateral teeth; and the strength of their jaws, as well as 
the extent of opening between them, is by this means 
much diminished. In most of these particulars they 
exhibit a striking contrast with the more perfect of the 
carnivorous races, and afford grounds for expecting an 
equally manifest falling off from their ferocious and 
sanguinary propensities. The dogs are in fact by no 
means equally carnivorous with the cats; and their teeth, 
especially the grinders, are fitted as well for the demo- 
lition of vegetable as of animal substances. 
In a wild state, however, they subsist themselves 
principally by preying upon the inferior animals, feed- 
ing with nearly equal relish upon the warm and palpi- 
tating fibres of a fresh and almost living victim, and 
upon the mangled carcass which taints the air with its 
unsavoury exhalations. Their habitation is in the depths 
