ORDER OE CARNIVORA. 
In the Carnivora are included the strongest and most formidable 
of all terrestrial Mammals. Being endowed with proclivities of a 
most violent nature, and organised for slaughter and carnage, 
they all feed more or less on flesh and blood, spreading terror 
around them. They are marked out by Providence to play a 
special part— that of limiting the multiplication of the herbivo- 
rous species ; and, strange as it may appear at first sight, their 
disappearance from the surface of the earth might lead to serious 
inconvenience. 
Although animal matter in all cases forms some part of their 
sustenance, all the individuals of this Order do not live upon 
it exclusively, as there are some which add to it vegetable 
diet in different proportions. Some, indeed, are more herbi- 
vorous than carnivorous. Hence arise variations of greater or 
less extent in the organs of the nutritive apparatus, especially 
in the digestive canal and the dental system, and very important 
characteristics which are derived from this class of modification. 
The Carnivora possess, as a rule, three kinds of teeth — incisors, 
dog-teeth or fangs, and molars. The incisors, placed in front, 
are six in number in each jaw, excepting in the Sea-otter, which 
has only four in the lower jaw. The dog-teeth are long, strong, 
sharp, and well adapted to tear the flesh of a victim ; they con- 
stitute terrible weapons. There are two of them in each jaw, 
placed on each side of the incisors. Lastly come the molars, 
which vary very much both in number and form, according to 
the kind of food eaten ; they are divided into front-molars, flesh- 
teeth, and tubercular or bach-molars. The front-molars are usually 
pointed, and increase in size from the first to the last ; their 
number is one at least, and four at most. These are followed by 
a tooth with a sharp- edged crown, the largest in the whole system, 
known under the name of the flesh- tooth. The last, or tubercular 
