Chapter XI (2)

“Bell, in his ‘Quadrupeds’ quotes Buffon as stating that Badgers are fond of Wasps’ nests. This is true, for, like the Bear, they love honey and sweet food. I once heard a pair of Badgers fighting, and crept upon the ground until within a few yards of the angry conflict, but the bracken hid them from view. Next morning I visited the place. A Wasps’ nest had been stormed and eaten; very little of the comb remained, and not a dozen homeless Wasps. That summer I myself saw the wrecks of seven Wasps’ nests taken by the Badgers in one field, and this autumn they are digging out every one they can find.

“The Badger and the Fox are not unfriendly, and last spring a litter of cubs was brought forth very near the Badgers; but their mother removed them after they had grown familiar, as she probably thought they were showing themselves more than was prudent.”[179]

Although far from common, the Badger is found in many parts of Great Britain and on the Continent. Closely allied species occur over a great part of Northern Europe and Asia.

In former times it was in great requisition for the so-called sport of “Badger-baiting,” in which charming and refined amusement the unhappy animal was put into a barrel and attacked by an unlimited number of Dogs, amongst whom it was often able to do considerable execution, thanks to its sharp teeth and powerful jaws.

THE AMERICAN BADGER.[180]

The distinction between this species and the European Badger consists chiefly in the shorter and more hairy character of the snout, and in the fact that the body is of a uniform whitish hue, sometimes shaded with grey or tawny. The body and head together are about twenty-four inches long, the tail six inches. It is found throughout the greater part of North America.

In its shyness, its general mode of life, and its habits, it differs but slightly from the Common Badger. Although in many parts it is so numerous that its burrows form a very serious obstacle to the traveller, yet it is a comparatively rare thing to see a specimen, so immediately does it retire to its strongholds on the first intimation of man’s approach. It can, however, be trapped without much difficulty, and thousands are caught in this way every year. In 1873 the Hudson’s Bay Company sold 2,700 in London alone. Dr. Coues quotes an interesting account of the habits of a captive Badger. He says:--“In running, his fore-feet crossed each other, and his body nearly touched the ground. The heel did not press on the ground like that of the Bear, but was only slightly elevated above it.... We have never seen any animal that could exceed him in digging. He would fall to work with his strong feet and long nails, and in a minute bury himself in the earth, and would very soon advance to the end of a chain ten feet in length. In digging, the hind as well as the fore-feet were at work, the latter for the purpose of excavating, and the former (like paddles) for expelling the earth out of the hole; and nothing seemed to delight him more than burrowing in the ground. He seemed never to become weary of this kind of amusement; and when he had advanced to the end of his chain he would return and commence a fresh gallery near the mouth of his first hole. Thus he would be occupied for hours, and it has been necessary to drag him away by main force. He lived on good terms with the Racoon, Grey Fox, Prairie Wolf, and a dozen other species of animals. He was said to be active and playful at night, but he seemed rather dull during the day, usually lying rolled up like a ball, with his head under his body for hours at a time.”

THE TELEDU.[181]

This animal, sometimes called the “stinking Badger,” is found only in Java and Sumatra, and in those islands only on mountains having an elevation of more than 7,000 feet above the sea. It is a little more than a foot long; has a pig-like head, a stout body, very short legs, and a stumpy tail, not more than an inch long. The feet are plantigrade. It is of a dark brown colour, with the exception of a white band running along its back. But one of its chief characteristics is its power of ejecting, from its tail-glands, a volatile fluid, the odour of which is said to be even as bad as that of the Skunk.

The Teledu lives in burrows during the day, and comes out at night to seek its food, which consists chiefly of earth-worms, insects, and their larvæ.

THE CAPE ZORILLA.[182]

An ally both of the Skunks and Badgers, the Zorilla may be said to take the place of the former animals in Africa, through the whole of which continent it extends, reaching also into Asia Minor. The body, which attains a length of about a foot, is moderately stout, of a shining black ground-colour, and marked with white bands and spots. The snout is elongated like that of the South American Skunk (_vide infra_); the tail is bushy, about eight or nine inches long, and striped or spotted.

The Zorilla lives upon small mammals, birds, and their eggs, as well as amphibia and crustacea. It is a determined enemy to poultry, and entails great loss to the inhabitants of the districts where it is found, but is often tamed, and used to catch Rats and Mice. In the matter of scent, the secretion in its tail-glands is worthy of comparison with that of the Skunk itself.

An allied form is the Indian genus _Helictis_, a Weasel-like animal with a long body, and of a grey-brown colour, white underneath, and marked along the back with a white stripe. The tail is long and bushy. This animal is found from Nepaul to Java in the south, and Formosa in the east.

THE COMMON SKUNK.[183]

This notorious American species is a stoutly-built animal, with short legs, a long conical head with a truncated snout, and a long bushy tail. The general colour of the fur is black, or nearly so, but on the forehead there is a white streak, and on the neck a white patch, from which two broad bands of the same hue proceed backwards along the upper surface of the body. The length from tip of snout to root of tail is something over a foot; the tail itself is less than a foot in length. The general appearance of the animal is decidedly Badger-like; it has, in fact, a good deal of resemblance both to the Ratel and to the Teledu. As in the Weasel, Ermine, and Polecat, there is one molar on each side of the upper, two on each side the lower jaw; altogether there are thirty-four teeth. It occurs throughout the whole of the temperate portion of North America.

We have mentioned that several of the Weasel family enjoy the distinction of being able to eject a foul-smelling fluid from glands at the root of the tail. In this accomplishment the Skunk is the undoubted chief. It can eject its perfume to a considerable distance, and with unerring aim: and the smell! The “odour of mingled guano and Polecat,” which, according to Mr. Kingsley, distinguishes the ancient Cornish dainty squab-pie, is simply nothing in comparison with the horrible stench emitted by this little animal. It is so durable, that the spot where a Skunk has been killed will often retain the scent for days, or even weeks; indeed, Audubon relates that at one place where a Skunk had been killed in the autumn, the odour was quite perceptible in the following spring after the snow had melted. Clothes defiled with the secretion cannot be thoroughly cleansed by any ordinary means: for even if the scent seems to have disappeared, it will make itself evident every time the wearer goes near a fire, or into the sun. Notwithstanding this, furriers have found out a way for effectually purifying Skunk-skins, which are now a good deal used as furs. In Britain, where the Skunk is not known in the flesh, these furs are called by their right names, but in America, where the inhabitants do not enjoy the same blissful ignorance of this noxious beast, they are dignified with the appellation of “Alaska sable.”

But the scent of the secretion is not its worst feature. Sir John Richardson quotes Mr. Graham as saying “that he knew several Indians who lost their eyesight in consequence of inflammation, produced by this fluid having been thrown into them by the animal,” and continues, “I have known a dead Skunk, thrown over the stockades of a trading-port, produce instant nausea in several women, in a house with closed doors, upwards of a hundred yards distant.” Dogs often suffer from inflammation of the eyes after being squirted with the fluid, and appear to be almost distracted with the pain. Curiously enough, the secretion has been recommended as a cure for asthma. “The story is told of an asthmatic clergyman who procured the glands of a Skunk, which he kept tightly corked in a smelling-bottle, to be applied to his nose when his symptoms appeared. He believed he had discovered a specific for his distressing malady, and rejoiced thereat; but on one occasion he uncorked his bottle in the pulpit, and drove his congregation out of church.”[184]

The efficacy of the secretion as a defensive weapon for the not otherwise formidable animal is greatly enhanced by the distance to which it can be ejected. This is probably as much as twelve or fourteen feet, while the smell itself can be perceived for a comparatively immense distance.

Besides its perfume, the Skunk has yet another claim to careful avoidance: its bite has been known in many cases to produce hydrophobia, in a form quite indistinguishable, according to an American surgeon, Dr. Janeway, from that induced by the bite of a rabid Dog.

An allied species, the Little Striped Skunk,[185] is less than a foot long, and the tail is shorter than the body. The fur is black, and marked with numerous white stripes and spots. It is found in the southern part of the United States, and is said to be readily capable of domestication, proving very serviceable as a Mouser. Of course, under these circumstances, the glands are removed while the animal is young.

The White-backed Skunk[186] is the South American form of the genus. It occurs throughout that Continent as well as in Mexico and the south-western portions of the United States. It is much larger than the northern species, attaining a length of from eighteen inches to two feet, and is further distinguished by its short white tail, which does not exceed nine or ten inches in length, its pig-like snout projecting a full inch beyond the mouth, and its white back sometimes marked by a median black stripe. The rest of the fur is, as usual, black.

Our friend, Mr. Purdie, whose acquaintance with the Skunk in South America has been of the most practical kind, assures us that when about to discharge its secretion, the animal invariably faces round, so as to look its enemy full in the face, throws its tail over its back, and allows the breeze to carry the fluid in the desired direction. This method of discharge seems highly unaccountable, and difficult to reconcile with the anatomical facts; but it would be certainly going too far to say that it is impossible. Dr. Coues, who has repeatedly observed the North American Skunk, states that the animal invariably turns its back to its intended victim.

THE COMMON OTTER.[187]

We now come to the most thoroughly aquatic of the Fissipedia, the sub-family of Otters, animals which, although quite capable of active and unembarrassed movement on land, are yet thoroughly at home only in the water. In accordance with this mode of life, the toes are webbed, and provided with very short claws, and the tail is long, tapering, and flattened, so as to serve the precise purpose of the corresponding appendage in a fish. The length of the head and body is about two feet, that of the tail, one foot five inches. The fur is of a soft brown colour, becoming lighter on the under side of the throat and the breast, and consists of long, coarse, shining hairs, with a short under-fur of fine texture, well calculated to preserve equality of temperature as the animal resorts alternately to land or water. The skull is greatly elongated, and flattened from above downwards; the facial part of it is small, as compared with the brain-containing or cranial part. The region of the skull between the eyes is very narrow, and its floor is wide and thin. In all these points, save the first mentioned, the skull of the Otter approaches that of the Seal. As to the teeth, there is one premolar less on each side of the lower jaw than in the Martens,[188] and both molars and premolars have sharp-pointed cusps, quite like those of the other _Mustelidæ_.

The habits of the Otter are so entirely aquatic, that in the good old times it was thought to be a sort of cross between a beast and a fish, just as the Bat was thought to be intermediate between a beast and a bird. So deeply rooted was this opinion that the Otter’s flesh was considered quite fishy enough to be eaten by devout Catholics on fast days. To this Izaak Walton alludes in a well-known passage in his “Complete Angler.”

“_Piscator._ ‘I pray, honest huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant
question: do you hunt a beast or a fish?’

“_Huntsman._ ‘Sir, it is not in my power to resolve you; I leave it
to be resolved by the College of Carthusians, who have made vows
never to eat flesh. But I have heard the question hath been debated
among many great clerks, and they seem to differ about it, yet most
agree that her tail is fish; and if her body be fish too, then I
may say that a fish will walk upon land.’”

The movements of the Otters in water are marvellous. They swim about in families, performing the most astonishing pranks, from mere exuberance of spirits and excess of energy. Nothing can give a better idea of their activity, than the description of them in that most delightful of natural history books and fairy tales, “Water Babies.”

“Suddenly Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, and grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two Stock Doves, nine Mice, three Guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left them there to settle themselves and make music. He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the noise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: and yet it was not a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and then it joined again; and all the while the noise came out of it louder and louder.

“Tom asked the Dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with his short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards away. So he took the neatest little header into the water, and started off to see for himself; and, when he came near, the ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that ever was seen. And if you don’t believe me, you may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid that you won’t see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery’s Moor, and watch by the great withy pollard which hangs over the back-water, where the Otters breed sometimes), and then say, if Otters at play in the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you ever saw.”

The Otter makes a sort of nest in hollows in the banks of the river in which it lives, but does not, as is sometimes stated, construct complicated burrows: its claws, indeed, are too weak for any such work. It usually confines itself to rivers, but is sometimes found on the sea-shore.

Otter hunting was formerly a very favourite sport. It was conducted with a special breed of Dogs--the Otter-hound--(see p. 141), and the spear was used for killing the animal when brought to bay.

Otters are quite capable of domestication, and may be taught to catch fish for their masters. For this purpose they must be caught young, and gradually brought to live upon bread and milk. When this end is attained, they are taught to fetch and carry, like a Dog--first sticks, &c., then a stuffed fish, then a dead one. When this part of their education is perfect, and they make no attempt to mangle the fish given to them, they are sent into the water to catch living fish. Otters are trained for this purpose in India, and also in China, where they are used by the fishermen of the Yang-tse-kiang. Mr. J. Thomson[189] says:--“We noticed men fishing with trained Otters in this part of the river. There were a number of boats, and each boat was furnished with an Otter tied to a cord. The animal was thrust into the water, and remained there until it had caught a fish; then it was hauled up, and the fisherman, placing his foot upon its tail, stamped vigorously until it had dropped its finny prey.”

There is one peculiar habit of the Canadian Otter[190] which is worthy of mention. “Their favourite sport is sliding, and for this purpose in winter the highest ridge of snow is selected, to the top of which the Otters scramble, when, lying on the belly, with the fore-feet backwards, they give themselves an impulse with their hindlegs, and swiftly glide head foremost down the declivity, sometimes for the distance of twenty yards. This sport they continue apparently with the keenest enjoyment until fatigue or hunger induces them to desist.”

In the Margined-tailed Otter[191] the skull characters, which we have mentioned as distinctive of Otters, especially the narrowness of the region between the eyes, and the shortness of the nasal region, are so exaggerated, that the animal approaches towards the Sea Otter, of which we shall speak next. The Margined-tailed Otter, which is found in Brazil and Surinam, derives its name from a longitudinal ridge on each side of its conical tail. The fur is of a bright bay-brown colour, both above and below.

THE SEA OTTER.[192]

This interesting animal differs in many important respects from the Common Otter, and in all such points shows an approximation to the structure of the Seals. It is a large animal, about three feet long, not counting the tail, which is about a foot more. Its fur is dark brown, both on the upper and lower surfaces, and presents a frosted or silvered appearance, owing to the fact that the long stiff hairs, which differ greatly from those of the under-fur, are grey or colourless at the tip. The head is very short, the snout naked; the eyes extremely small, and placed low down on the sides of the head, and the whiskers are short, but stout and stiff, and mostly directed downwards; altogether there is something very Seal-like about the face. The fore-limbs and feet are small, the paws rather Cat-like in their rounded form, and the claws are quite hidden by the hair. The hind feet, on the other hand, are flat and expanded, being no less than six inches long by four broad, and webbed like a Duck’s feet, or a Seal’s flippers; they differ, however, from the Seal’s, in the fact that the toes increase in length from the inner to the outer side; both above and below they are covered with dense fur, which quite hides the short, stout claws. The skull is, both in its cranial and facial portions, much shorter in comparison with its width than in the ordinary Otters; its base is extremely broad, and both upper and lower jaws bear on each side only eight teeth, so that there are altogether thirty-two teeth, or four less than in the Common Otter.[193] This diminution in number is brought about, as will be seen from the formula below, by reducing the upper premolars from four to three, and the lower incisors from three to two on each side. The form of the grinders differs altogether from what we have found, not only in the Mustelidæ, but in all the Land Carnivores. Their grinding surfaces present no sharp cusps, or jagged cutting edges, as in most Carnivorous forms; neither are they provided with numerous small tubercles and ridges, as in the Bears; but the surface of each is raised into a small number of rounded eminences, reminding one of the “roches moutonnées” of a glacial district, or, as Dr. Coues remarks, differing from the teeth of ordinary Carnivores, as water-worn pebbles differ from fresh-chipped angular pieces of rock.

The Sea Otter is found in the North Pacific, chiefly in the regions of Kamstchatka and Alaska, and extends as far south as California.

Like the Seal, the Sea Otter is gregarious, being often found “in bands numbering from fifty up to hundreds. When in rapid movement, they make alternate undulating leaps out of the water, plunging again as do Seals and Porpoises. When in a state of quietude, they are much of the time on their backs. They are frequently seen in this posture, with the hind flippers extended, as if catching the breeze to sail or drift before it. They live on Clams, as well as Crabs and other species of Crustacea; sometimes small fish. When the Otter descends and brings up any article of food, it instantly resumes its habitual attitude on the back to devour it. On sunny days, when looking, it sometimes shades its eyes with one fore paw, much in the same manner as a person does with the hand.”[194] This curious habit, as we have seen, is adopted also by the Glutton. The supine position is so habitual that the females actually sleep in the water on their backs, with the young ones clasped between their fore paws. While in this position, too, the Otter will toss a piece of sea-weed backwards and forwards from paw to paw, like a ball, and the mother play with her offspring for hours together.

The fur is very valuable, and the animal is consequently hunted regularly; so regularly, that there is every possibility of the species becoming speedily extinct unless some check is put upon the chase. For taking some action in the matter, there is the further reason that the natives of the Aleutian Isles, the chief resort of the animal, are dependent on its hunting for their subsistence, and it has been shown that the people have diminished in numbers coincidently with the Otters.

“There are four principal methods of capturing the Sea Otter, namely, by _surf-shooting_, by _spearing-surrounds_, by _clubbing_, and by _nets_.”

“The surf-shooting is the common method, but has only been in vogue among the natives a short time. The young men have nearly all been supplied with rifles, with which they patrol the shores of the island and inlets, and whenever a Sea Otter’s head is seen in the surf, a thousand yards out even, they fire, the great distance and the noise of the surf preventing the Sea Otter from taking alarm until it is hit; and in nine times out of ten, when it is hit in the head, which is all that is exposed, the shot is fatal, and the hunter waits until the surf brings his quarry in, if it is too rough for him to venture out in his ‘bidarkie.’ This shooting is kept up now the whole year round.

“The spearing-surround is the orthodox native system of capture, and reflects the highest credit upon them as bold, hardy watermen. A party of fifteen or twenty bidarkies with two men in each, as a rule, all under the control of a chief elected by common consent, start out in pleasant weather, or when it is not too rough, and spread themselves over a long line, slowly paddling over the waters where the Sea Otters are most usually found. When any one of them discovers an Otter asleep, most likely, in the water, he makes a quiet signal, and there is not a word spoken or a paddle splashed while they are on the hunt. He darts towards the animal, but generally the alarm is taken by the sensitive object, which instantly dives before the Aleut can get near enough to throw his spear. The hunter, however, keeps right on, and stops his canoe directly over the spot where the Otter disappeared. The others, taking note of the position, all deploy and scatter in a circle of half a mile wide round the point of departure thus made, and patiently wait for the re-appearance of the Otter, which must take place within fifteen or thirty minutes, for breath; and as soon as this happens the nearest one to it darts forward in the same manner as his predecessor, when all hands shout and throw their spears, to make the animal dive again as quickly as possible, thus giving it scarcely an instant to recover itself. A sentry is placed on its second diving-wake as before, and the circle is drawn anew; and the surprise is often repeated, sometimes for two or three hours, until the Sea Otter, from interrupted respiration, becomes so filled with air or gases that he cannot sink, and becomes at once an easy victim.

“The clubbing is only done in the winter season, and then at infrequent intervals, which occur when tremendous gales of wind from the northward, sweeping down over Saanach, have almost blown themselves out. The natives, the very boldest of them, set out from Saanach, and scud down on the tail of the gale to the far outlying rocks, just sticking out above surf-wash, where they creep up from the leeward to the Sea Otters found there at such times, with their heads stuck into the beds of kelp to avoid the wind. The noise of the gale is greater than that made by the stealthy movements of the hunters, who, armed with a short, heavy, wooden club, dispatch the animals one after another without disturbing the whole body, and in this way two Aleuts, brothers, were known to have slain seventy-eight in less than an hour and a half.”

The nets used by the Atka and Attore Aleuts “are from sixteen to eighteen feet long, and six to ten feet wide, with coarse meshes made nowadays of twine, but formerly of sinew. On the kelp-beds these nets are spread out, and the natives withdraw and watch. The Otters come to sleep or rest on these places, and get entangled in the meshes of the nets, seeming to make little or no effort to escape, paralysed, as it were, by fear, and fall in this way easily into the hands of the trappers, who have caught as many as six at one time in one of these small nets, and frequently get three.... No injury whatever is done to these frail nets by the Sea Otters, strong animals as they are; only stray Sea Lions destroy them.... The salt water and kelp seem to act as a disinfectant to the net, so that the smell of it does not repel or alarm the shy animal.”[195]

GENERAL RELATIONS OF THE LAND CARNIVORA, RECENT AND FOSSIL.

From very obvious reasons we have been compelled to describe the various forms of Land Carnivora of which we have been able to take account, one by one, beginning with Cats, and ending with the Otters. But the reader will already have discovered that a linear arrangement like this gives no true conception of the relations existing between the various families of which the sub-order is composed, or of the various genera which are included in the families. For cross-relationships of the most puzzling and often complicated description are perpetually turning up: among the Æluroids, for instance, we found Cryptoprocta to be intermediate between Cats and Civets, and yet, if we had followed the order indicated by this relationship, we should have had to ignore the close connection between Cats and Hyænas, and that between Hyænas and Civets, through the intermediation of the Aard Wolf.

It is necessary, then, to devise some method of writing down the names of the families, other than that of placing them one under the other, if we are to get anything like a clear notion of their mutual relationships. The method adopted by Professor Flower is perhaps the most convenient, and following him, we arrange the groups thus:--

FELIDÆ. HYÆNIDÆ. URSIDÆ.
CRYPTOPROCTIDÆ. PROTELIDÆ. CANIDÆ. PROCYONIDÆ. AILURIDÆ.
VIVERRIDÆ. MUSTELIDÆ.

In this scheme we see an expression of the fact that the Dogs (_Canidæ_) form a central group, from which the families of the Æluroidea--those to the left--diverge in one direction, and the families of the Arctoidea--those to the right--in the other direction. The Civets (_Viverridæ_) and the Weasel family (_Mustelidæ_), being the least modified of the Æluroid and Arctoid sections respectively, are placed at the bottom of the table, the Cats (_Felidæ_) and Bears (_Ursidæ_), being the most modified, are placed at the top. The two latter families, again, are placed at opposite extremities of the table, as far from one another as possible, to indicate the great gap which separates the digitigrade, short-skulled, active, carnivorous Cats, from the plantigrade, long-skulled, clumsy, herbivorous Bears. To be quite accurate, such a scheme should take account not merely of families, but of genera: in our table, for instance, there is nothing to show the immense amount of specialisation undergone by one section of the _Mustelidæ_--the Otters--to fit them for aquatic life; but such a detailed arrangement is quite beyond the scope of the present work.

* * * * *

In considering the chief forms of Carnivora existing at the present day, we have by no means exhausted this varied and interesting group, for a number of its members, the forerunners of those now living, have vanished from the face of the earth, and are known to us only by their bones, which we find here and there entombed in the strata of which the crust of our earth is composed.

In the newest, that is the most recently deposited, set of strata, those which together form the beds of the Pleistocene period, we find a very curious change in the flesh-eaters inhabiting England. Instead of having nothing but Wild Cats, Wolves, and Bears--the only wild beasts known to have existed in the historical period--we have the enormous Cave Lion (_Felis spelæa_), besides the Cave Bear (_Ursus spelæus_), and the Cave Hyæna (_Hyæna spelæa_), the last being merely a variety of the Spotted Hyæna (_Hyæna crocuta_) of the present day. The presence of the first and last of these would seem to indicate that the climate of Britain was warmer in the Pleistocene period than it now is; but the presence of the Glutton, as well as of some non-carnivorous Arctic animals, tends to the other opinion, namely, that the climate of England was sub-Arctic. Very probably the Cave Lion and Hyæna were provided with thick woolly fur, and so, like the Mantchurian Tiger and the Northern Leopard (see pp. 34 and 42), enabled to bear a degree of cold experienced by but few of their relatives at the present day.

In beds of the same age in South America is found a true Cheetah, a species now confined to the Old World. But the most wonderful animal belonging to this period is the great Sabre-toothed Tiger (_Machærodus_), a gigantic animal, with canines six or eight inches long, and jagged at their edges like a very fine saw. It would almost seem as if Dame Nature, in producing this terrible beast, had actually got to the end of her tether in the matter of specialisation for carnivorous habits; the canines of Machærodus were so long that he must have had some difficulty in opening his mouth sufficiently wide to take in anything large, and thus it would seem that he actually overshot the limit of perfection, and died of over-specialisation. The canines of the Sabre-toothed Tiger are, however, not its only peculiarity: there is one less premolar on each side of the upper jaw than in the modern members of the Cat family, so that the total number of teeth is reduced to twenty-eight,[196] the smallest number found in any of the Carnivora.

On descending to the rocks of Pliocene age, we find, amongst many forms existing at the present day, an animal called _Galecynus_, about the size of the Fox, and possessing many characters, in its teeth, limbs, &c., intermediate between those of the Dogs and those of the Civets. Another genus, _Hyænarctos_, is almost exactly half-way between Dogs and Bears; its molars have less of a cutting character than a Dog’s, and less of a grinding character than a Bear’s, and its front premolars, though much smaller than a Dog’s, do not fall out altogether, as in the Bear.

In the Pliocene, or Late Miocene strata, remains have been found of many existing genera, such as Cats, Civets, Hyænas, Dogs, Weasels, Ratels, and Otters; but amongst these are several genera not occurring in any of the more recent strata, and all, or nearly all, tending to bridge over the gaps which separate existing families from one another. For instance, a perfect gradation between the Hyænas and Civets is afforded by two genera, _Hyænictis_ and _Ictitherium_; while _Lutrictis_ shows affinities both with Civets and Otters, _Hemicyon_ with Dogs and Gluttons, and _Dinictis_ with Cats and Weasels. Another very interesting genus, _Promephitis_, belongs undoubtedly to the Weasel family, but is intermediate between its three sub-families, the Weasels proper, Badgers, and Otters. _Simocyon_, again, an animal about the size of a Leopard, is described as having the canines of a Cat, the molars of a Dog, and jaws shaped like those of a Bear. Lastly, _Amphicyon_ is a large plantigrade animal, Bear-like for the most part, but with trenchant molars, like a Dog’s, and having a small additional or third molar on each side of the lower jaw, the number of its teeth being thus brought up to that which may be called the typical Mammalian number, namely, forty-four.[197]

In the Eocene, or Lower Tertiary, still more remarkable forms occur, along with several genera existing at the present day, such as the Cryptoprocta, Civet, Dog, and Marten, all of which are found in the upper or more recent strata of the Eocene formation. But lower down the genus _Cynodon_ also connects Dogs with Civets; and in the very lowest beds occurs a large plantigrade animal (_Arctocyon_), with a very small brain-case, wide jugal arches, a complete set of forty-four teeth, and altogether of a generalised character. In the Eocene of North America, _Limnocyon_ and _Prototomus_ occur low down, and in the Middle Eocene a form as large as a Lion has been discovered, to which the name _Limnofelis_ has been given, and also _Orocyon_, and some allies of the _Hyænodon_.

But we have not yet learned all that Palæontology can teach us about the history of the Carnivora. In the Eocene and Lower Miocene beds are found animals referred to the genera _Hyænodon_, _Pterodon_, _Palæonictis_, and _Proviverra_ which, not content with trespassing on the boundaries between existing families, actually wander outside the Carnivorous order altogether, and approach so nearly to the Marsupials (Kangaroos, Opossums, &c.) that many competent anatomists have proposed to place them in the latter group. The premolars and molars in these extinct animals have sharp cusps, and increase gradually in size from before backwards; so that, of the whole grinding series, the first premolar is the smallest, and the last molar the largest. Now we have seen that the rule among existing Carnivora is for the last molar to be a small tooth, and for the largest of the set to be the fourth premolar in the upper jaw, and the first molar in the lower jaw. On the other hand, the regular increase in size is very characteristic of the flesh-eating Marsupials, amongst which the Thylacine, or so-called Tasmanian Wolf, shows a considerable resemblance, as to its teeth, to _Hyænodon_ and _Pterodon_, while _Palæonictis_ and _Proviverra_ are more nearly allied to the Opossums and to the Dasyure, or Tasmanian Devil. The brain-case in these forms was very small, and a cast of the interior of the skull of Proviverra, figured by M. Gaudry,[198] shows that the brain must have had an extremely low character.

The roof of the skull is supposed to be cut away to show the form of the brain, as deduced from a natural cast of the interior of the skull.]

We thus see that a considerable number of the existing genera of Carnivora took their origin in the Eocene epoch, where they co-existed with creatures curiously intermediate between the various existing families, and with others intermediate between Carnivora and Marsupials. In the rocks of the Secondary period (chalk, oolite, lias, &c.), none of the Carnivora have as yet appeared, and only Marsupial remains are found.