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Rh the enamel of the teeth is of the carnivorous as distinct from the marsupial type. The head is large in proportion to the body, the lumbar region is unusually rigid, owing to the complexity of the articulations, and the tail and hind-limbs are relatively long and powerful. In life the tail probably passed almost imperceptibly into the body, as in the Tasmanian thylacine.

That the Creodonta are the ancestors of the modern Carnivora is now generally admitted. They are apparently the most generalized and primitive of all (placental?) mammals, and probably the direct descendants of the mammal-like anomodont or theromorphous reptiles of the Triassic epoch; the evolution from that group having perhaps taken place in Africa or in the lost area connecting that continent with India. The relationship of the creodonts to the carnivorous marsupials is not yet determined, but it seems scarcely probable that the remarkable resemblance existing between the teeth of the two groups can be solely due to parallelism; and it has been suggested by Dr L. Wortman that both creodonts and marsupials are descended from a common non-placental stock. In other words, the latter are a side-branch from the anomodont-creodont line of descent. Dr C. W. Andrews has pointed out that certain of the Egyptian creodonts appear to have been aquatic or subaquatic in their habits; and it is possible that from such types are derived the true seals, or Phocidae.

With the exception of Australasia, and perhaps South Africa, creodonts (on the supposition that the Patagonian forms are rightly included) appear to have had a nearly world-wide distribution. In Europe and North America they date from the Lowest Eocene and lived till the early Oligocene, while in India they apparently survived till a much later epoch. Some of the Oligocene forms, alike as regards dentition, the union of the scaphoid and lunar of the carpus, and the complexity of the brain, approximated to modern Carnivora.

As regards classification Mr W. D. Matthew includes in the typical family Hyaenodontidae not only the widely spread genera Hyaenodon and Pterodon, but likewise Sinopa (Stypolophus), Cynohyaenodon and Proviverra; but Viverravus (Didymictis) and Vulpavus (Miacis) are assigned to a separate family (Viverravidae). It is these latter forms which come nearest to modern Carnivora, most of them being of Oligocene age. The American and European Oxyaena apparently represents a family by itself, as does the American Oxyclaena; and Palaeonictis and Patriofelis are assigned to yet another family; while the North American Lower Eocene and Eocene Arctocyon typifies a family characterized by the somewhat bear-like type of dentition. Mesonyx is also a very distinct type, from the North American Eocene and Oligocene. Some of the species of Patriofelis and Hyaenodon attained the size of a tiger, although with long civet-like skulls. In the earlier forms the claws often retained somewhat of a hoof-like character.

The South American Borhyaenidae include Borhyaena, Prothylacinus, Amphiproviverra, and allied forms from the Santa Cruz beds of Patagonia, and have been referred to a distinct group, the Sparassodonta, mainly on account of the alleged replacement of some only of the milk-molars by premolars. By their first describer, Dr F. Ameghino, they were regarded as nearly related to the marsupials, to which group they were definitely referred in 1905 by Mr W. J. Sinclair, by whom they are considered near akin to Thylacinus, but this view seems to be disproved by the investigations of Mr C. S. Tomes into the structure of the dental enamel.

It should be added that Dr J. L. Wortman transfers Viverravus and its allies, together with Palaeonictis, to the true Carnivora, the latter genus being regarded as the ancestral type of the sabre-toothed cats (see ).

—J. L. Wortman, “Eocene Mammalia in the Peabody Museum, pt. i. Carnivora,” ''Amer. J. Sci.'' vols. xi.-xiv. (1901–1902); W. D. Matthew, “Additional Observations on the Creodonta,” ''Bull. Amer. Mus.'' vol. xiv. p. i. (1901); C. W. Andrews, Descriptive Catalogue of the Tertiary Vertebrata of the Fayum, British Museum (1906); W. J. Sinclair, “The Marsupial Fauna of the Santa Cruz Beds,” ''Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc.'' vol. xlix. p. 73 (1905).

CREOLE (the Fr. form of criollo, a West Indian, probably a negro corruption of the Span, criadillo, the dim. of criado, one bred or reared, from criar, to breed, a derivative of the Lat. creare, to create), a word used originally (16th century) to denote persons born in the West Indies of Spanish parents, as distinguished from immigrants direct from Spain, aboriginals, negroes or mulattos. It is now used of the descendants of non-aboriginal races born and settled in the West Indies, in various parts of the American mainland and in Mauritius, Reunion and some other places colonized by Spain, Portugal, France, or (in the case of the West Indies) by England. In a similar sense the name is used of animals and plants. The use of the word by some writers as necessarily implying a person of mixed blood is totally erroneous; in itself “creole” has no distinction of colour; a Creole may be a person of European, negro, or mixed extraction—or even a horse.

Local variations occur in the use of the word as applied to people. In the West Indies it designates the descendants of any European race; in the United States the French-speaking native portion of the white race in Louisiana, whether of French or Spanish origin. The French Canadians are never termed creoles, nor is the word now used of the South Americans of Spanish or Portuguese descent, but in Mexico whites of pure Spanish extraction are still called creoles. In all the countries named, when a non-white creole is indicated the word negro is added. In Mauritius, Reunion, &c., on the other hand, creole is commonly used to designate the black population, but is also occasionally used of the inhabitants of European descent. The difference in type between the white creoles and the European races from whom they have sprung, a difference often considerable, is due principally to changed environment—especially to the tropical or semi-tropical climate of the lands they inhabit. The many patois founded on French and Spanish, and used chiefly by creole negroes, are spoken of as creole languages, a term extended by some writers to include similar dialects spoken in countries where the word creole is rarely used.

See G. W. Cable, The Creoles of Louisiana (1884); A. Coelho, “Os Dialetos romanicos on neo latinos na Africa, Asia e America,” ''Bol. Soc. Geo. Lisboa'' (1884–1886), with bibliography. For the Creole French of Haiti see an article by Sir H. H. Johnston in The Times, April 10th, 1909.

 CREON, in Greek legend, son of Lycaethus, king of Corinth and father of Glauce or Creusa, the second wife of Jason.

 CREON, in Greek legend, son of Menoeceus, king of Thebes after the death of Laius, the husband of his sister Jocasta. Thebes was then suffering from the visitation of the Sphinx, and Creon offered his crown and the hand of the widowed queen to whoever should solve the fatal riddle. Oedipus, the son of Laius, ignorant of his parentage, successfully accomplished the task and married Jocasta, his mother. By her he had two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, who agreed after their father’s death to reign in alternative years. Eteocles first ascended the throne, being the elder, but at the end of the year refused to resign, whereupon his brother attacked him at the head of an army of Argives. The war was to be decided by a single combat between the brothers, but both fell. Creon, who had resumed the government during the minority of Leodamas, the son of Eteocles, commanded that the Argives, and above all Polyneices, the cause of all the bloodshed, should not receive the rites of sepulture, and that any one who infringed this decree should be buried alive. Antigone, the sister of Polyneices, refused to obey, and sprinkled dust upon her brother’s corpse. The threatened penalty was inflicted; but Creon’s crime did not escape unpunished. His son, Haemon, the lover of Antigone, killed himself on her grave; and he himself was slain by Theseus. According to another account he was put to death by Lycus, the son or descendant of a former ruler of Thebes (Euripides, Herc. Fur. 31; Apollodorus iii. 5, 7; Pausanias ix. 5).

 CREOPHYLUS of Samos, one of the earliest Greek epic poets. According to an epigram of Callimachus (quoted in Strabo xiv. p. 638) he was the author of a poem called , which told the story of the conquest of Oechalia by Heracles. Creophylus was said to have been a friend or relative