be the _Ailuropus_. We now come to the
Bear-like animals, the next in order, being the Racoons (_Procyon_),
Coatis (_Nasua_), Kinkajous (_Cercoleptes_), and the Cacomixle
(_Bassaris_) of North and South America, and then our own Panda or
Cat-Bear (_Ailurus fulgens_).

This, with the above-mentioned Racoons, &c., forms a small group of
curious bear-like animals, mostly of small size. Externally they
differ considerably, especially in their long bushy tails, but in
all essential particulars they coincide. They are plantigrade, and
are without a caecum or blind gut; the skull, however it may approach
to a viverrine or feline shape, has still marked arctoid
characteristics. The ear passage is well marked and bony, as in that
of the bear, but the bulb of the drum (_bulla tympani_) is much
developed, as in the dogs and cats. The molars are more tuberculated
than in the bears, resembling the hinder molars of a dog.

AILURIDAE.

F. Cuvier, who received the first specimen of the type of this family
from his son-in-law, M. Duvaucel, was not happy in his selection of
a name, which would lead one to suppose that it was affixed to the
cats instead of the bears. It certainly in some degree resembles the
cat externally, and it has also semi-retractile claws, but in greater
measure it belongs to the Arctoidea. There are only two genera as
yet known--the Red Cat-Bear, _Ailurus fulgens_, and the Thibetan
_Ailuropus melanoleucos_.

_GENUS AILUROPUS_.

This very rare and most curious animal should properly come between
the bears and _Ailurus_, as it seems to form a link between the two.
Such also is the idea of a naturalist friend of mine, who, in writing
to me about it, expressed it as being a link between _Helarctos
Malayanus_ and _Ailurus fulgens_. Very little is, however, known of
the creature, which inhabits the most inaccessible portions of a
little-known country--the province of Moupin in Eastern Thibet. It
was procured there by the Abbe David, who, after a prolonged
residence in China, lived for nearly a year in Moupin, and he sent
specimens of the skull, skin, &c., to M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, from
whose elaborate description in his 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes'
I have extracted the following notice. The original article is too
long to translate _in extenso_, but I have taken the chief points.

NO. 168. AILUROPUS MELANOLEUCOS.

HABITAT.--The hilly parts Moupin, Eastern Thibet.

[Figure: _Ailuropus melanoleucos_