of Alces, as in the case of the reindeer, we are ignorant.  The earlier Pleistocene of Europe has yielded nearly related fossils,[2] and a peculiar and probably rather later form comes from New Jersey and Kentucky.  This last in some respects suggests a resemblance to the wapiti, but it is unlikely that the similarity is more than superficial, and as moose not distinguishable from the existing species are found in the same formation, it is improbable that Cervalces bore to AIces anything more than a collateral relationship.

[Footnote 2:  The huge fossil known as “Irish elk” is really a fallow deer and in no way nearly related to the moose.]

Even to an uncritical eye, the differences between ungulates and carnivores of to-day are many and obvious, but as we trace them back into the past we follow on converging lines, and in our search for the prototypes of the carnivora we are led to the Creodonta, contemporary with Condylarthra, which we have seen giving origin to hoofed beasts, but outlasting them into the succeeding age.  These two groups of generalized mammals approached each other so nearly in structure, that it is even doubtful to which of them certain outlying fossils should be referred, and the assumption is quite justified that they had a common ancestor in the preceding period, of which no record is yet known.

The most evident points in which Carnivora differ from Ungulata are their possession of at least four and frequently five digits, which always bear claws and never hoofs; all but the sea otter have six small incisor teeth in each jaw; the canines are large; the molars never show flattened, curved crests after the ruminant pattern, but are more or less tubercular, and one tooth in the hinder part of each jaw becomes blade-like, for shearing off lumps of flesh.  This tooth is called the sectorial, or carnassial.

Existing carnivores are conveniently divided into three sections:  Arctoidea—­bears, raccoons, otters, skunks, weasels, etc.; Canoidea—­dogs, wolves and foxes; Aeluroidea—­cats, civets, ichneumons and hyaenas.

It is highly probable that these three chief types have descended in as many distinct lines from the Creodonta, and that they were differentiated as early as the middle Eocene, but their exact degree of affinity is uncertain; bears and dogs are certainly closer together than either of them are to cats, and it is questionable if otters and weasels—­the Mustelidae, as they are termed—­and raccoons are really near of kin to bears.

Seals are often regarded as belonging to this order, but their relation to the rest of the carnivores is very doubtful.  Many of their characters are suggestive of Arctoidea, but it is an open question if their ancestors were bear or otter-like animals which took to an aquatic life, or whether they may not have had a long and independent descent.  At all events, doubt is cast upon the proposition that they are descended from anything nearly like present land forms by the fact that seals of already high development are known as early as the later Miocene.