AETICLE VIII. 



NOTES ON THE CANIDiE OF THE WHITE RIVEE OLIGOCENE. 



BY W. B. SCOTT. 



(INVESTIGATION MADE UNDER A GHANT FROM THE ELIZABETH THOMPSON FUND OF THE A. A. A. S.) 



(Plates XIX and XX.) 

 Bead before the American Philosophical Society, February 4, 1898. 



The problems concerning the origin and mutual relationships of the various families 

 into which the Carnivora Fissipedia are divided have not yet been satisfactorily solved, 

 principally because of the rarity of well-preserved fossils representing the earlier and 

 more primitive members of the families. Especially obscure are the questions dealing with 

 the derivation and systematic position of the Felidce, a family which by many authorities 

 is regarded as occupying an entirely isolated position, not directly connected with any 

 of the other groups. Hardly less puzzling, however, are many of the facts of canine 

 phylogeny, such as the relations between the two great series of the wolves and the foxes. 

 and the connection between the many divergent genera of successive geologicai horizons. 

 No satisfactory answer to these questions can be given until many complete phylogenetic 

 series of the Carnivora shall have been discovered, for so long as the numerous wide gaps 

 which now separate the known members of the various series remain unbridged, those 

 series must continue to be largely conjectural. At any time, new discoveries may call for 

 an entire readjustment of our views regarding the lines of descent of the different 

 families. 



Eecently, there has come into my hands some uncommonly well-preserved material for 

 the phylogenetic history of the Ckuiidce and is the occasion of the present paper. This 

 material was obtained for the museum of Frinceton University by Messrs. Gidley and "Wells, 

 who in the summer of 1896 made a collecting trip through the Bad Lands of Nebraska and 

 South Dakota. They had the good fortune to discover certain unworked localities where 

 the exposures of the White River Oligocene proved to be richly fossiliferous and, in par- 

 ticular, yielded many unusually complete specimens of primitive dogs. A study of this 

 material has brought to light some very remarkable and unexpected facts, which, to the 

 writer at least, seem to require a revision of some current views upon the phylogeny of 

 the carnivorous families, and to throw some light upon the obscure and difficult problems 

 relating to the origin of the cats. The most valuable of these specimens are referable to 



