CIVETS, MACHAIRODONTS, AND CATS 177 



Eastern Asia ^ and spread thence across Behring Straits into North 

 America, from which it gradually made its way to the southern 

 part of the New World ^; the leopard, the snow leopard, the 

 clouded tiger, the lynxes, the smaller cats, and the cheetah. 



Felis leo. The Lion 



Since the disappearance of the Machairodonts and the cave 

 bear this has been admittedly the grandest development of the 

 carnivorous type. It is doubtful even whether for ferocity, for 

 irresistible might, and magnificent dental armature the cave bear 

 should not be counted inferior to the splendid development ot 

 lion (known as the cave lion) which inhabited England and 

 France during the Pleistocene period ; while as regards the 

 Machairodonts, though in one or two species they attained 

 dimensions exceeding the biggest lion, and their mouths were 

 armed with huge ivory sabres, it must be remembered that these 

 grandest examples of carnivorous development existed in North 

 and above all in South America. The Machairodonts of Europe 

 were certainly armed with big flattened canine tusks, but it is 

 questionable whether they attained the same size of head and 

 body as the big cave lions. Their commonest forms were not 

 much larger than leopards. 



The Lion differs from all existing cats, even slightly from the 

 tiger, in the relatively long muzzle into which the face is 

 prolonged, and also in the direction and growth of hair on the 



1 Von Zittel (Handbuch der Palaontologie — Palaozoologie, vol. iv. — is 

 my authority for this statement. 



^ A fossil cat, Fdis cristata, found in the north-west of India, would seem 

 to indicate the existence there of a form intermediate between the jaguar and 

 the tiger. The jaguar (which is, no doubt, only a larger development of the 

 leopard) seems, together with the ocelot, to have once inhabited parts of 

 Eastern Asia, and thetice to have reached North America. Its range in North 

 America at the present day is probably confined to Mexico and Texas, but 

 formerly it was met with farther north. It is now most abundant in South 

 America. Consequently its range is a singular parallel to that of the tapir 

 and alligator, both of which are found existing or fossil in Eastern Asia on the 

 one hand and South and Central America on the other. 



