Marsh Collection, Peabody Museum. 123 



Although there are numerous specimens of the first phalanges 

 of Patriofelis ferox in the Marsh collection, after the most 

 careful examination I fail to detect a single example in which 

 the distal articular surface is limited in the manner depicted 

 by Professor Osborn in his diagram. These specimens, 

 moreover, agree perfectly in this respect, not only with the 

 original figure, figure TO, of the American Museum specimen, 

 published in my paper, but what is still more to the point, 

 they agree with the photograph of the same specimen which 

 Professor Osborn himself reproduces, figure 2, p. 169, of the 

 paper under discussion. What more conclusive or final tes- 

 timony is it possible to adduce in support of the contention 

 that this diagrammatic representation of these facets is wrong 

 and the conclusions drawn from them are entirely erroneous ? 



I am still of the opinion that we shall find it necessary to 

 retain our old methods for judging the gait of these extinct 

 animals, methods which have for their basis a consideration of 

 the entire organization of the foot, and such as are calculated 

 to help us as near to the truth as we shall ever be likely to come. 



Among the living Carnivora the plantigrade foot is char- 

 acterized by short slightly interlocking metapodials and spread- 

 ing toes, whereas in the typical digitigrade foot the metapodials 

 are more elongate, compressed, and interlocking, and the toes 

 less spreading. In the former the naked plantar and palmar 

 pads are enlarged and extended so as to wholly underlie these 

 bones, while in the latter these pads are restricted to their 

 distal ends: Judged upon the merits of this class of evidence, 

 the feet of Patriofelis ferox were as plantigrade as those of 

 the modern bears, a conclusion which, to my mind, is clearly 

 indicated by every feature of its podial anatomy. 



The third section of this paper is devoted to the so-called 

 ''Specialized Characters of the Oxysenidge," and upon this 

 topic I feel it necessary, if only in the interests of clearness, to 

 make a few remarks. In the first place it is important to note 

 that if the term "specialized" is employed in the usual or 

 ordinary sense, common to the subject, then out of the thirty 

 or more characters enumerated, comparatively few can be cor- 

 rectly called, specialized. 1 have always understood this term 

 to denote a condition the reverse of generalized, or in other 

 words one which is uncommon, peculiar, particular, and differ- 

 ent from others ; it is also employed in the sense of advanced. 

 The specialized characters of the Oxysenidse should therefore 

 be taken to indicate those which it possesses that are different 

 from, or advanced over and above, the other families of the 

 suborder to which it belongs. We shall presently see to what 

 extent the characters therein enumerated are entitled to be set 

 down as " specialized characters " of the Oxysenidse. 



