ORDER CARNIVORA. 



1429 



found in the Miocene of Bavaria, and the Pliocene of Greece and 

 Persia ; while the genus is also represented by a smaller species in 

 the Pliocene of North America. M. Larteti of the Miocene of 

 Sansan should perhaps be referred to the African genus Ictonyx. 



Fig. 1307. — Right lateral view of the skull of the Polecat (Mustela putorius). 



The extinct Plesictis occurs in the Lower Miocene and Upper 

 Eocene (Oligocene) of Europe, and is characterised by the presence 



of - premolars, and the circumstance that the temporal ridges of 



4 

 the cranium do not unite to form a sagittal crest, as they do in 

 Mustela. The inner portion of the upper true molar, as in some 

 of the Miocene species of Mustela (Pal<zogale\ be- 

 comes narrower than the outer, and the auditory 

 bulla is more inflated ; both these features indicat- 

 ing affinity with the Viverrine genus Stenoplesictis. 

 The existing genus Galictis of America is repre- 

 sented in the Pleistocene of the two divisions of 

 that Continent ; while the Arctic Gulo occurs in the 

 Pleistocene of Europe, where remains of the existing 

 Wolverine (G. luscus) are met with. 



Family Procyonid^e. — The Procyonidtz may be 

 taken to include both the American Racoons and 

 Coatis and the Indian sElurus, but are of small 

 palaeontological importance. In all living genera the true molars 



Fig. 1308.— Upper 

 and outer view of 

 the left lower car- 

 nassial of Mustela; 

 from the Pliocene 

 of India. 



are - in number; and the American forms have no alisphenoid 

 2 



canal. Nasua (Coati) occurs fossil in the Pleistocene of Brazil ; 

 and the extinct Cynonasua, characterised by the presence of three 

 lower true molars, is found in the older infra-V ampean of Pata- 

 gonia. Procyon (Racoon) is represented in the Pleistocene of 

 North America ; while Leptarctus from the same deposits, and 

 Arctodus from the Pleistocene of South Carolina, are extinct genera 



