624 



LAND MAMMALS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 



Fig. 257. — Upper teeth of ^Daphoenus felinus. 

 p. 4 = fourth premolar. (After Hatcher.) 



the phyla into which the family was divided became blended 



in a common stock at that stage. 



A second phylum, now entirely extinct, is that of the fbear- 



dogs, which is not certainly recorded later than the middle 



Pliocene, though 

 iS^iP) some have been 

 doubtfully reported 

 from the older Pleis- 

 tocene of the Great 

 Plains and the re- 

 markable Calif ornian genus, 'fHycenognathus, may have been 



an offshoot of the same stock. The phylum was characterized 



by the unusually large size of the molars and by certain other 



features, which, however, are not 



known to have persisted through 



the entire series from first to last. 



In the middle Pliocene lived some 



very large bear-dogs, of the genus 



"fBorophagus, the teeth of which had 



a strong likeness to those of the 



hyenas and probably the animals 



had hyena-like habits, feeding largely 



upon carrion and crushing the stout- 

 est bones with their massive teeth. 



The same, or a very similar, genus 



lived in the lower Pliocene, but none 



of the species of that date is at all 



well known. In the upper Miocene ^'o- 258.— Right manus of toa- 



. . . I'll phcenusfdinus. SI., scapho-lunar. 



occurred several species which have pj,., pyramidal, ps., pisiform. 

 been referred to the European ^- unciform. (After Hatcher.) 



Compare with Kg. 32. p. 82. 



genera, jAmphicyon and jDmocyon. 



The latter was an enormous canid, equalling in size the largest 

 of living bears, the great Kadiak Bear of Alaska, and, though 

 probably having a long and heavy tail, was much like a bear 

 in appearance. The teeth indicate a more exclusively car- 



