EXTINCT CATS. 
447 
obtained skulls of the great crested cat (F. cristata) which must have been fully as 
large as the tiger, but appears to show signs ,of affinity with the jaguar. Equally 
large cats (F. atrox and F. augnsta ) have left their remains in the strata of the 
same geological period in the United States. Numerous extinct cats of this genus 
also occur in the Pliocene deposits of France and other countries on the Continent 
of Europe, but these are of smaller dimensions, as also are those found in beds 
belonging to the upper half of the preceding Miocene period, below which true 
cats are unknown. The Siwalik Hills have also yielded the remains of a cat which 
is believed to indicate the existence of a species of hunting-leopard at the period 
when their rocks were in process of formation. 
Passing on not only to extinct species but likewise to extinct genera, we may 
notice first those remarkable creatures known as sabre-toothed cats ( Machairodus ). 
These cats, some of which were equal in size to the 
lion and tiger, are all characterised by the enormous 
development of the tusks, or canine teeth of the 
upper jaw, which formed long sabre-like weapons 
projecting far below the lower jaw, as shown in our 
greatly reduced figure of the skull of one of the 
South American species. The great length of the 
upper tusks must have completely prevented them 
from biting in the ordinary manner, as, when the 
mouth was opened to its widest extent, these teeth 
would still have reached to the lower jaw. Hence 
the only mode in which they could have been used 
would appear to have been as striking or tearing 
weapons when the mouth was closed. In some species 
the cutting power of these teeth was increased by 
their sharp edges being finely notched like a saw. 
These sabre-toothed cats seem to have abounded 
in the Pleistocene and Pliocene epochs of the earth’s history, their remains having- 
been obtained from the cavern and other superficial deposits of England, the 
Continent, Persia, India, and North and South America. They are also known 
from strata of much older age, having been found in France in rocks belonging 
to the upper part of the Eocene period. 
In the Miocene strata of the United States, and also in the Miocene and Upper 
Eocene rocks of Europe, there are found more generalised cats, many of which differ 
from existing forms in having three or four (instead of two) premolar teeth in the 
lower jaw; while some of them also have an extra molar tooth behind the lower 
flesh-tooth. In the presence of these additional teeth, they approach the other 
families of Carnivores; and this approximation is also shown by the structure of some 
of their teeth. Thus in many of them the upper flesh-tooth, instead of having three 
distinct lobes in the blade as in existing cats, has but two such lobes, as in a dog. 
In another form the Claws, although still retractile, had not the bony sheaths of the 
modern cats. The animals to which these early cats seem to make the nearest approach 
are the civets, thus suggesting that the Cat family may have been derived from 
primitive Carnivores, more or less closely allied to the modern civets and their allies. 
SIDE VIEW OF THE SKULL OF THE 
SOUTH AMERICAN SABRE-TOOTHED 
cat. (Greatly reduced.) 
