384 GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



Sumatra, Java, and Borneo; the serval (F. serval), from the greater 

 part of the African continent; and the cheetah or hunting leopard 

 (F. or Cynaelurus juhatus), whose domain covers nearly the whole 

 of the African continent and a very considerable part of South- 

 em and Western Asia. The lynx or lynxes range from the polar 

 regions to the Mediterranean, whence they are continued by an 

 allied form, the caracal, over a large part of both Asia and Africa. 

 Felis catus, the wild-cat proper, which is met with in both insular 

 and continental Europe, is not, as is frequently supposed, the an- 

 cestor of the domestic animal ; this place is now generally conceded 

 to the Egyptian and West Asiatic F. maniculata. 



Numerous species of the family, referable in considerable part 

 to the genus Felis of most authors, and differing but little from 

 forms still living, are found fossil in the Post-Pliocene, Pliocene, 

 and Miocene deposits of Europe, Asia, and America. Among the 

 best known of these is the cave-lion (F. spelaea), a species but barely 

 if at all distinguishable from the F. leo, whose remains are abun- 

 dantly met with in the Post-Pliocene cave deposits of continental 

 Jilurope and England. During the same period the existing lion 

 appears to have hunted its prey as far north as Yorkshire and on 

 the frontiers of Poland, and the leopard or panther among the 

 Mendip Hills. Felidse, allied to the panther and lynx, have been 

 discovered in the Pliocene strata of the Siwalik Hills of India. 

 Felis angustus, from the North American Pliocene deposits, was in- 

 termediate in size between the jaguar and tiger, while the later F. 

 atrox, which may be considered to represent in the New World the 

 European cave-lion, appears to have surpassed in this respect both 

 the lion and the tiger. In association with the modern type-forms of 

 Felidaa there occur others which depart very widely from these, the 

 most remarkable of which, as representing the most highly special- 

 ised forms of the family, and as strictly the most carnassial of all 

 known Carnivora, were the so-called sabre-fooths. The animals of 

 this group are characterised by a prodigious development of the , 

 upper canines, which in some instances appear to have measured as 

 much as seven or nine inches in length. The best-known genus is 

 Machairodus (Drepanodon), whose remains have been found in both 

 the Miocene and Pliocene deposits of Europe (Pliocene of India), 

 and whose immediate American representative appears in Smilodon 

 (Pliocene or Post-Pliocene of Buenos Ayres and Texas), a contem- 



