366 EXTINCT MAMMALIA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



TRUCIFELIS. 



Trncifelis fatalis. 



See Plate XXVIII, Figs. 10, 11. 

 Felis (Trucifelis) fatalis, Leidy : Proc. Ac. Nat. Sc. 1868, 175. 



An extinct feline animal, approaching in size the Lion or Bengal Tiger, which I 

 have distinguished by this name, is indicated by the specimen represented in figures 

 10, 11, plate XXVIII. It consists of a small fragment of the upper maxilla, con- 

 taining the sectorial tooth and the socket for the succeeding small tubercular tooth. 



The specimen, together with teeth of Horses, the tooth of a large Sloth, a number of 

 Turtle bones and a small fragment of a Mastodon tooth, have been submitted to my 

 inspection by the New York Lyceum of Natural History, through the kind office of 

 Messrs. D. G. Elliott and Geo. N. Lawrence. They are all more or less black or 

 brown, and most of them are thoroughly imbued with soft bitumen or petroleum, 

 having been obtained from a petroleum bed in Hardin County, Texas. 



The sectorial molar resembles that of the ordinary feline animals, but in general 

 its crown is considerably longer in proportion with its breadth and thickness. 



The breadth of the crown is a little less than in the Lion and Tiger, but the prin- 

 cipal cusp and the anterior lobe are longer, while the posterior lobe, though not 

 deeper or longer at its fore-part, is of more uniform depth. The proportionate thick- 

 ness is nearly the same as in the Lion or Tiger. The anterior lobe of the crown 

 differs from that of other Cats, not only in its proportionately greater length, but in 

 its distinct division into two sublobes, of which the anterior one extends more than 

 half the depth of the other. In feline animals generally there is an apparent ten- 

 dency to the production of a sublobe at the base of the anterior lobe of the crown, 

 especially in the Tiger, but in them it is a production of the basal ridge, which is not 

 the case in the fossil tooth under inspection. In the division of the front lobe of the 

 crown, the fossil tooth exhibits more likeness to the corresponding temporary tooth 

 of the Lion or Tiger than to that of their permanent series, thus indicating a more 

 primitive character in the animal to which it belonged. The buttress at the fore- 

 third of the crown internally is rounded at base, without forming a conspicuous tu- 

 bercle as in the Cats. 



From the approximation in size of the upper sectorial molar to that of the lower 

 sectorial molar of Felis at7-ox, 1 at first suspected it to belong to the same animal, but 

 when we consider the facts that the tooth just mentioned of F. airox agrees in its 

 form and proportions with that of the ordinary Cats, while the former tooth differs 

 so much, it is rendered improbable that it should belong to the same. 



In comparison with the upper sectorial molars of Drepanodon or Machairodus, that 

 of our fossil differs as much from them as from those of other known Cats. 



