Vol, 5] Merriam. — John Day Carnivora. 61 



in most of its characters. The Deep River species referred to 

 Canis point toward a later period than John Day. 



Fortunately the position of the Tertiary deposits of Eastern 

 Oregon is not dependent on the relationships of the John Day 

 fauna alone. The stratigraphic relations of the Mascall beds to 

 the John Day are well known, and in the Mascall valuable canid 

 remains have been obtained. The physical history of the region 

 shows the Mascall to be separated from the John Day by at least 

 one period of erosion and by the epoch of the accumulation of 

 the Columbia Lava. The best known canid from these beds, 

 Tephrocyon, is in many respects similar to Canis, but differs in 

 other characters, and is in general a more primitive form than 

 Canis. In still other characters it points toward the Aelurodon 

 group. It may be near the ancestors of Aelurodon, and there- 

 fore probably older than the Loup Fork. The relationships of 

 the Mascall Canidae, and the stratigraphic relations taken to- 

 gether indicate that the epoch of the Mascall beds is not far from 

 that of the Deep River. The position of the John Day below 

 these beds puts it into a division much earlier than the Loup 

 Fork. 



Felidae. — Remains of representatives of the Felidae are known 

 in Eastern Oregon only from the John Day beds. The relation 

 of these forms to those of the White River and Loup Fork are 

 shown in the following table. The number of species is indicated 

 for each genus. 



White River John Day Loup Fork 



Deinictis 4 1 



Pogonodon 3 



Nimravus and Archaelurus 3 



Hoplophoneus ,. 6 2 



Eusmilus 1 



Machaerodus 1(?) 



Pseudaelurus 1 



Felis 2(f) 



Compared with the White River cats, the Felidae of the John 

 Day have sometimes been considered the more primitive, having 

 fewer specialized forms of the Hoplophoneus type, no Eusmilus, 

 almost as many of the deinictids, and the larger part of the whole 

 representation of the family made up of the apparently very 

 primitive forms of the Nimravus-Archaelurus group. 



