230 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



so-called lion, or puma, ranges from Canada to Patagonia, 

 and reached at one time from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

 It is still common in the dense forests which clothe the 

 mountains of Central America. The most powerful of 

 the American cat tribe, the jaguai', only extends from 

 Texas southward nearly to Patagonia. 



The cats exhibit to us a structure of body specially 

 modified for a predaceous existence. Nevertheless, 

 certain extinct animals of the group had attained 

 a more special and extreme organisation of the kind 

 than is to be found in any existing species. These 

 were the sabre-toothed tigers, remains of which have 

 been discovered in difierent tertiary rocks in India, 

 Europe (including England), and both North and South 

 America. They had enormous canine, or eye teeth, 

 the tusks of the upper jaw attaining a length of seven 

 inches in one South American form which was about 

 the size of a tiger. Also, the blades of these teeth 

 were much flattened from within outward, their sharp, 

 cutting edges being serrated like a small saw- — a 

 character but feeblj' developed in any of the large living 

 cats. Moreover, the lower jaw was sometimes much 

 broadened from above downward, the better to protect 

 these enormously developed teeth, which in some species 

 were so large that the jaws could not be opened beyond 

 them, so as to allow them to be used for biting. They 

 could therefore, only be made use of as daggers, the 

 animal striking with them while its mouth was closed. 



Naturahsts are now agreed that the group which in- 

 cludes the civets, the genets, and the mongooses is one 

 nearly alHed to the cat tribe. It is a large and varied 

 group which includes many species, but not a single one 

 of them is to be found, except in confinement, on the 

 American side of the Atlantic. They are creatures 



