ANCESTRY OF THE DOG TRIBE 
is not full-grown until its fourth or fifth year. The best specimens are 
deep liver-brown everywhere silvered or ‘frosted’ with the hoary tips of 
scattered long hairs.” A fine skin is now worth in London (the central 
fur mart) $500 or more, previous to any furrier’s preparation; and some 
single pelts have sold as high as $1400. Only about 4oo pelts reached 
London in 1904. 
“The sea-otter mother sleeps in the water on her back, with her young 
clasped between her fore paws. The pup cannot live without its mother. 
Their food is almost entirely composed of clams, mussels, and sea urchins, 
of which they are very fond, and which they break up by striking the shells 
together, held in each fore paw, sucking out the contents as they are frac- 
tured by these efforts. They also undoubtedly eat crabs and fish, and the 
juicy, tender fronds of kelp.” 
The Dog Tribe, — Canidae 
In taking up the dogs and their kin of the family Canide, we 
study the oldest and most central stock of the Carnivora, — 
the animals most intellectual and most closely connected with 
man. The dogs display, says Cope, superiority to all other 
families in the character of the brain: ‘There are four longi- 
tudinal convolutions of the cerebral hemispheres, while the other 
families have but three.” But studies of the skulls of fossil 
dogs show that their brains were much inferior in organization 
to those of recent examples of the family. 
As to the origin and ancestry of the dog tribe, Cope shows the probability 
of their descent from the Miacidz, the latest and most specialized of the 
creodonts (see page 80). | Cynodictis of the European Eocene, 
says Woodward, may not only be an ancestor of Canis, but 
would serve almost as well for a forerunner of the Mustelide and Viverride. 
Huxley declared 1! that Cynodictis not only lay in the direct ancestry of 
the Canidae, but ‘‘represents pretty closely the stock from which the branch 
of the Viverride arose, subsequently to give rise to the Felide and Hye- 
nidz.”” The most conspicuous feature connecting all these animals whose 
ancestry is so commingled is the bulbous, bladderlike inflation of that 
part of the skull (auditory bulla) which on each side contains the inter- 
nal apparatus of the ear, and acts as a resonant sounding-board, increas- 
ing greatly the hearing power. This apparatus and sense are perfected in 
this family; and there is good reason to believe that the Carnivora as a 
187 
Evolution. 
