include _O. stelleri_, the northern sea-lion, the largest
of the genus, from the North Pacific, about 10 ft. in length; _O.
jubata_, the southern sea-lion, from the Falkland Islands and
Patagonia; _O. californiana_, from California; _O. ursina_, the
sea-bear or fur-seal of the North Pacific, the skins of which are
imported in immense numbers from the Pribiloff Islands; _O.
antarctica_ or _pusilla_, from the Cape of Good Hope; and _O.
forsteri_, from Australia and various islands in the southern
hemisphere. (See SEAL-FISHERIES.)

Little is known as to the past history of the sea-lions and sea-bears,
but a skull has been obtained from the Miocene strata of Oregon, which
Mr F.W. True states to be considerably larger than any existing
sea-lion skull; its basal length when entire being probably about 20
in. The name _Pontoleon magnus_ has been proposed for this fossil
sea-lion, as the character of the skull and teeth do not agree
precisely with those of any living member of the group. If, however,
all the modern eared seals are included in the genus _Otaria_, there
is apparently no reason to exclude the fossil species.

EXTINCT CARNIVORA

Modern Carnivora are undoubtedly the descendants of the Creodonta
(q.v.), an extinct early Tertiary suborder. It has been observed that
as the Miocene is approached, some of these Carnivora Creodonta, or
Primitiva, begin to assume more and more of the characteristics of the
Carnivora Vera, till at last it is difficult to determine where the
one group ends and the other commences. The creodont genera
_Stypolophus_ and _Proviverra_ show some of these modern characters;
but it is not till we reach the European Oligocene genus _Amphictis_,
with the dental formula i. 3/3, c. 1/2, p. 4/4, m. 2/2, that we meet a
type in which the fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar
assume the truly sectorial character of the Carnivora Vera, while the
teeth behind them are proportionally reduced in size. From the
_Amphictidae_ are probably descended the _Viverridae_, the connecting
genus being the African _Nandinia_, which, as already mentioned,
retains the imperfectly ossified bulla of the ancestral forms. In
another direction, _Amphictis_, through the Old World Lower Pliocene
genus _Ictitherium_, has given rise to the _Hyaenidae_. The _Felidae_
have apparently an ancestral type in the creodont _Palaeonictis_,
which has bee