A hand-book to the carnivora. Pt. I, Cats, civets, and mungooses / by Richard Lydekker.

  • Lyddeker, Richard, 1849-1915.
Date:
[1894]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A hand-book to the carnivora. Pt. I, Cats, civets, and mungooses / by Richard Lydekker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lower portions of the limbs have not undergone such excessive elongation, while the fore-feet retain the original typical number of five toes, and in the hind pair the number of digits is only reduced by one. Then, again, whereas in the Antelopes the movements of the fore-limb have become restricted to a backwards-and-forwards direction, while its extremities (like those of the hind-limb) are encased in solid horny hoofs, in the Cats the same limb is capable of a free rotatory motion, and its toes are armed with sharp and powerful claws. These divergencies of structure are, of course, to be accounted for by the respective exigencies of the mode of life of the members of the two groups; the Antelopes having merely had to attain a speed sufficient to enable them to escape the attacks of their enemies, while the Cats had not only to equal or surpass this speed, but to have the power of striking down their prey and holding it when struck. Another parallelism between the two groups may be detected in their dentition, which in each case has been specially modi- fied for the exigencies of a particular mode of existence, and has thus departed very widely from the generalised type pre- valent in many of the older Mammals, and which is partially retained in the common Pig. In the Antelopes the object of the modification has been to produce a type of dentition best suited for the cropping and mastication of grasses. Conse- quently, while the teeth of the cheek-series, that is to say, the pre-molars and molars, have been retained in their full number, though their crowns have been lengthened, and likewise compli- cated by infoldings and flutings of their summits and sides, so as to form the best possible masticating apparatus, the tusks, or canines, have disappeared, either totally or as such, while the lower incisor teeth have assumed spatulate crowns admir- ably adapted for plucking off the tufts of grass seized in the tongue, by biting against the hard, callous pad in the front of the