inches between their points and the lower teeth when the mouth was wide open; but it is not impossible that they were used like tusks for striking a terrible downward blow, to which their shape would well adapt them. A fine cranium of one species, M. Latidens, from the La Plata, is to be seen in Wall-case, No. 1 (south side), in the geological collection at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, with these teeth well preserved; and in the same gallery most of the fossil carnivora to be subsequently mentioned are represented. There seems little reason to doubt that the man of the palæolithic period may have been familiar with this feline monster, and also with the great cave bear, Ursus spelaus; the cave lion, Felis spelaa; and the cave hyæna, Hyæna spelœa. The bear was as formidable as the existing "grizzly" of America, the lion of larger proportions than either the Asiatic or African species of our time, and the hyæna on a larger scale than existing species. In all the principal caverns the presence of the hyæna may be distinctly traced by the bones of herbivora gnawed in a manner characteristic of his living congeners, and by his own remains. The wolverine, or glutton now an Arctic species, extended into central France, and smaller species, such as the otter, weasel, &c., were represented in Meiocene times. Species of Canis, too, appear in the gypsum of Montmartre, showing that this form was early differentiated; while a wolf, closely similar to Canis lupus of our time, has been found in the Cromer forest-bed, associated with extinct proboscideans.

Inasmuch as this forest-bed is certainly pre-glacial, the lupine form was already in being, at least as early as, and even anterior to, the period at which the human race had become so far differentiated from its ancestral form as to be entitled to claim the rank of Man. We cannot know whether the men of the drift period domesticated it; but this may be assumed with some confidence, that, surrounded as they were by ferocious carnivora, and living solely by the chase, beings intelligent enough to manufacture stone weapons would not

have overlooked the advantage of securing the help of so valuable an animal. That the men of the paleolithic and neolithic periods were not without a canine companion can scarcely be doubted, though the direct evidence of this is scanty.

From the above it will be seen that the true carnivora are comparatively recent (i.e., so far as we know, not older than the Eocene), though they may have appeared in that period represented by the geological hiatus, between the Secondary and Tertiary formations. Since their appearance they have increased in families and genera, and now may probably be considered at their maximum of specialisation. The influence of man, however, is assuredly destined to extinguish all except a few forms useful to him, and one of the survivals under domestication is certain to be the genus canis.

FINIS.

R