* Cuvier names them amphibia, which is a term too comprehensive, when the seals and walrus only are intended. 10 CARNIVORA. drawing them back without opening the mouth. Toward the point they are furrowed longitudinally. The cheek-teeth exhibit all the marks of carnivorous habits : they rise into several lobes or cuttingeminences, which are in shape something like the point of a lancet, or the teeth of a saw 5 but they differ in size and power. These lobes are cutting on either side, as well as at the point ; and they rise from the inner, as well as from the outer edge of the tooth. In other animals, in which the teeth cease to be cutting, and are blunt, rounded, tubercular, or hemispherical, they are more or less fitted for vegetable food*; and, in proportion to the extent, either of cutting or tubercular surface on the cheekteeth, is ,the animal more or less inclined to the corresponding sort of aliment. The inner side of the last upper carnivorous tooth, in the cat tribe, has one small lobe, in a slight degree allied to the tubercular form. A reference to the figure will explain their shape and position more obviously. It will appear by this, that there are three carnivorous cheek-teeth above and below ; but there is a fourth cheek-tooth in the upper jaw, altogether differing from the rest, which, from its singular shape, position, and apparent office, may be called an auxiliary tooth. It is situate so as not to be seen, except by opening the mouth wide, and looking upward. It does not protrude from the * The purely herbivorous animals have no lobes on the cheek-teeth^but they present a regular series and nearly an even surface. * Iliger and Cuvier notice it : the former says, Molares obducti, fere omnes sectores, supra utrinsecus 4 : antici duo conoidei crassiusculi, tertius maximus acie bicuspide, et interius gradu antico laterali parvo auctus, quartus tritorius tuberculatus parvus interior transversus. Infra utrinsecus 3 : antici duo compressi simplices, tertius maximus acie bicuspide." Cuvier describes it : Le quatrieme dent est tres-petite et placee transversalement en dedans de r extremite posterieure de la precedente. Sa couronne est plate." 1 1 am not certain that this auxiliary tooth is found in the lynxes. CARNIVORA. The pupil of the eye is in some species oval, 'and in others circular. It is also capable of much alteration, not only in size, but also in figure, resulting from the degree of light acting upon it, and occasionally from some sudden mental impulse, so as to be sometimes round, sometimes oval, and sometimes a mere vertical line, in the same animal. There are some positions so universally considered as true, that no one ever thinks of doubting them and it is, indeed, on such, that all reasoning must be grounded : but we cannot be over scrupulous in admitting, or too nice in investigating, any proposition, before it is classed with those fundamental axioms as self-evident, and therefore not requiring. to be demonstrated. That the pupils of cats are oval, and that therefore they are enabled t...
