ent and dentition, is pre-eminently flesh-eating, as Cuvier
aptly remarks, "the sanguinary appetite is combined with the force
necessary for its gratification." Their forms are agile and
muscular; their circulation and respiration rapid. As Professor
Kitchen Parker graphically writes: "This group, which comprises all
the great beasts of prey, is one of the most compact as well as the
most interesting among the mammalia. So many of the animals contained
in it have become 'familiar in our mouths as household words,'
bearing as they do an important part in fable, in travel, and even
in history; so many of them are of such wonderful beauty, so many
of such terrible ferocity, that no one can fail to be interested in
them, even apart from the fact likely to influence us more in their
favour than any other, that the two home pets, which of all others
are the commonest and the most interesting, belong to the group. No
one who has had a dog friend, no one who has watched the wonderful
instance of maternal love afforded by a cat with her kittens, no one
who loves riding across country after a fox, no lady with a taste
for handsome furs, no boy who has read of lion and tiger hunts and
has longed to emulate the doughty deeds of the hunter, can fail to
be interested in an assemblage which furnishes animals at once so
useful, so beautiful and so destructive. It must not be supposed from
the name of this group that all its members are exclusively
flesh-eaters, and indeed it will be hardly necessary to warn the
reader against falling into this mistake, as there are few people
who have never given a dog a biscuit, or a bear a bun. Still both
the dog and several kinds of bears prefer flesh-meat when they can
get it, but there are some bears which live almost exclusively on
fruit, and are, therefore, in strictness not carnivorous at all. The
name must, however, be taken as a sort of general title for a certain
set of animals which have certain characteristics in common, and
which differ from all other animals in particular ways." I would I
had more space at my disposal for further quotations from Professor
Parker's 'General Remarks on the Land Carnivora,' his style is so
graphic.

The dentition of the Carnivora varies according to the exclusiveness
of their fleshy diet, and the nature of that diet.

In taking two typical forms I give below sketches from skulls in my
possession of the tiger, and the common Indian black bear; the one
has