The cat; an introduction to the study of backboned animals, especially mammals (1881) (20586691985)

Title: The cat; an introduction to the study of backboned animals, especially mammals

Identifier: catintroductiont00miva (find matches)

Year: 1881 (1880s)

Authors: Mivart, St. George Jackson, 1827-1900

Subjects: Cats; Anatomy, Comparative

Publisher: London, Murray

Contributing Library: MBLWHOI Library

Digitizing Sponsor: MBLWHOI Library

Text Appearing Before Image:

CHAP, xui.) THE CAT'S PLAGE IN NATURE. 475 It also contains a tliird small family, Ailuridce, containing only the Panda (Ailtiriis), and, perhaps, Ailaropus* It comprises, fourthly and lastly, the large family of Weasels and Otters, called MusteUdcB. The third sub-order of Carnivora is termed ^luroidea, and it contains four families. One of these is the large family of Civets— Viverridce; another—Hycvnidce—is made up of the Hyajnas, with the aberrant Hya^na-like form Protclcs. The third—CnjptopvocUdcB —contains the singular Madagascar animal the Foussa, and the fourth and last family is the family of Cats, Felidce. § 22. If we compare the cat's sub-order ^duroidea with the Arctoidea, we find that some Arctoids differ strangely from the cat, especially the aquatic kinds, such as the otter, and above all the sea-

Text Appearing After Image:

Fig. 192.—Skull of the Bear (Ursus arclos). otter. Many, like the bear and badger, are completely plantigrade. Some have teeth which arc not at all sectorial, as the bears, coati and Ailui'iis; while others, as the glutton (Gtilo), have teeth which much resemble the cat's in structure. There is at least one hinder tubercular molar above and below, so that there are two true molars in the lower jaw.f In size the Arctoidea range from the smallest weasel to the grisly bear. Some Arctoids are frugivorous animals, as the sloth bear; others are most blood-thirsty, as the weasels, ferrets, and glutton. "With such varieties of form and habit, it is not surprising that good positive characters by which the species of a group so various may be united together, and at the same time divided off from the other sub-orders, are difficult to find. Eather, perhaps, is it sur- prising that any should be found at all. Yet good distinctive characters of a more or less recondite kind have been established. J * See Milne-Edwards's Recherches des Mammiferes, 1874, p. 321, plates 50 and 56. " Ailuropus" is a curious mammal (intermediate in some respects between the Panda and the bears), which was dis- covered in Thibet by the Rev. Pere David, the well-known French Lazarist Missionary. t With the exception of the Pata- gonian weasel, called Lyncodon. X Partly by the late Mr. H. N. Turner (too soon lost to science—a victim to a dissecting wound), and secondly by Professor Flower, F.R.S. See the Pro- ceedings of the Zoological Societv for 1848, p. 63 ; and for 1S69, p. 4.

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