CARNIVORA. 183 



well preserved material which will repay a more extended study and 

 enable us to revise the history of the American Carnivora of the later 

 Tertiary. 



Perhaps the most remarkable find of the decade is the great series of 

 splendidly preserved skulls and skeletons of the great Sabre Tooth Tiger 

 from the Californian Pleistocene. This will afford one of the most in- 

 teresting studies in morphology and adaptation that could be desired. 

 The other Carnivora associated with it are of quite subordinate impor- 

 tance, but w^ill place our knowledge of American Pleistocene Carnivora 

 upon a much sounder foundation than heretofore. 



In this summary of progress in American Carnivora I have empha- 

 sized the importance of complete material as the necessary foundation 

 for sound and permanent work. I may cite in contrast the state of our 

 knowledge of the Carnivora of the European Tertiary, which is still 

 based in great part upon a more or less imperfect acquaintance with the 

 dentition of a vast variety of genera whose real affinities are often ques- 

 tionable in spite of the immense learning and exhaustive study that has 

 been devoted to them by Dr. Schlosser and other high authorities. Very 

 little has been added to the European Carnivora in recent years; the 

 most important point is perhaps the recognition of the American genus 

 Pacliycena in the Lower Eocene of France. 



In the Oligocene of Egypt a remarkable fauna has been discovered 

 through the efforts of the Geological Survey of Egypt, the British Mu- 

 seum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Stuttgart 

 Museum. The Carnivora of this fauna are all Creodonts of the family 

 H3^senodontid3e, more or less closely related to the Upper Eocene Hyae- 

 nodonts of Europe, and roughly equivalent to them in stage of evolution. 

 This affords a striking contrast to the Tertiary fauna of South Amer- 

 ica, in w^hich no true Carnivora are found, their place being taken, as in 

 Australia, by specialized carnivorous Marsupials. The interpretation 

 of this fact can not be discussed here. 



A field well worth exploration is indicated by fossils obtained from the 

 apothecary shops of China and described by Schlosser. This fauna is 

 correlated with the Pliocene on faunal grounds, although such specimens 

 as I have seen compare in their preservation rather with Miocene than 

 with Pliocene fossils. The fauna is at all events a more directly ances- 

 tral fauna to the Pleistocene and modern Holarctic faunae and contains 

 fewer aberrant elements, than any other late Tertiary fauna which has 

 been described. It may turn out to be really Miocene, its progressive- 

 ness being due to its nearness to the dominant centers of dispersal of the 

 Tertiary Mammalia. 



