12 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS. 



Pier-case 3. model of the skull (Fig. 3) is placed on the top shelf of 

 Pier-case 3, must have been about as large as a donkey. 

 It clearly did not live in trees, and it may perhaps have 

 been adapted for an aquatic life. The bony rims of the 

 orbits are curiously produced and arranged like those of 

 a hippopotamus. 



Order II.— CARNIVORA. 



Sub-order 1. — Carnivora Vera. 



Pier-ease 3. The true cats or Felidse are well represented among 

 fossils, which trace back the ancestry of this highest surviving 

 tribe of flesh-eaters to Miocene European animals much 

 resembling the existing Cryptoprocta of Madagascar. Felis 

 itself first appears in the Middle or Upper Miocene of 

 Europe, and culminated in the great cave-lion, which is 

 probably only a variety of the existing Felis leo of Africa 

 and Asia. Among the numerous remains of this animal 

 in Pier-case 3 may be particularly noticed the fine skull 

 obtained by Mr. Flaxman Spurrell from the Pleistocene 

 brick-earth of Crayford, Kent. The small ancestral Felidse 

 are represented by jaws of Pseudselv/rus and Prosdurus from 

 the Miocene of France. 



Still more deadly than the Felidse must have been the 

 extinct Nimravidse or Machserodontidse, of which many 

 were as large as lions, with over-grown upper canine teeth 

 and with fore-limbs as effective as grappling irons. A 

 diagram of a complete skeleton of Machmrodus from the 

 pampa of South America (now in the National Museum, 

 Buenos Aires), is placed in the upper part of Pier-case 3, 

 above the remains of this and the allied genera. Machserodus 

 is often named the " sabre-toothed tiger," in allusion to its 

 large, laterally-compressed upper canine teeth, which have 

 finely serrated edges. The mouth seems to have opened 

 to an abnormal extent to permit the effective use of these 

 terrible weapons (Fig. 4). As shown by the fragmentary 

 fossils, Machserodus is represented first in the Miocene of 

 France and Germany; next in the Pliocene of France, 

 England, Italy, Greece, Hungary, the Isle of Samos, Persia, 

 and India ; and finally by the largest species in the Pleis- 

 tocene of France, Germany, Italy, England, North America, 

 Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina. Teeth from Kent's Cavern 

 and the Creswell caves prove its association with the cave- 



