Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/366

350 and powerful species described from the Indian Territory by Cope lived contemporaneously with the hairy mammoth, as evidenced by the commingling of their skeletons. There can be little or no question but that the hairy mammoth was contemporaneous with man in North America as well as in Europe. Their geological range is from the close of the Eocene to the latter part of the Pleistocene.

The accompanying illustration will give a fairly good idea of what some of these saber-toothed cats were like. Of course, one can not say that the animals were colored as the artist has represented them in his drawing. Perhaps there is more reason to believe that their markings, if they had any, were spots rather than bars, since spots are more primitive than bars. The figures were made from a skeleton of Hoplophoneus occidentalis, Leidy, recently constructed by Mr. E. S. Piggs in the University of Kansas Museum, and the artist had most perfectly mounted models of various recent cats to aid him in the restoration.

The chief peculiarities of the animal as seen in the picture are the extraordinarily elongated canine teeth. It will also be noticed that the tail is of unusual length and that the legs are short. The animal measured about seven feet in length aside from the tail. The lower jaws have a downward projection in front, as the picture shows, due to a flange-like widening of the jawbones, which doubtless served as a protection to the teeth, preventing their injury or loss. In some of the larger forms, from South America, this flange was not present, while the canine teeth were even more elongated than is the case with this species, attaining a length of over six inches and protruding far below the jaws when closed. Indeed, so far did they protrude that it was impossible for the mouth to be opened wide enough to permit anything to pass them. Skulls of these South American saber-tooths have been found, it is said, and one can readily believe the statement, in which the points of these teeth had become fastened in the lower jaws during life, preventing closure of the mouth, and in consequence casing starvation! It is difficult to quite understand just how these animals killed their prey. Doubtless some used their teeth as daggers, with a downward thrust, the mouth being closed. For this use the teeth were admirably adapted, being long, curved, and flattened, with each thin edge finely serrated.

In some of the most highly specialized of these animals the molar teeth in the back part of the jaws had been reduced in number, so that only one remained above and below on each side.

It is a pretty well established fact in natural history that such peculiar characters when once acquired are never lost. If this be