70 MAMMALS

merely the rudimentary great toe. The bears have
five toes on each foot. The cats have their toes
padded and clawed, the claws being what is known
as ‘retractile’—that is, held back by an elastic liga-
ment in such a way as to be kept off the ground in
the act of walking, or at will, and at the same time
being instantly protrusible by stretching the fingers,
or toes, as the case may be. None of the dogs have
retractile claws, nor are any of their claws very
sharp. When an animal walks on its toes it is said
to be ‘digitigrade,; when on its sole it is ‘ planti-
grade.’ The cats and dogs are usually classed as
digitigrade, the bears as plantigrade and sub-planti-
grade; but it is as well not to insist on this too
closely. The typical cat has thirty teeth, the formula
being 3, I, 3, 1 for the top jaw, and 3,1,2,1 for the other ;
the typical dog, like the typical bear, has forty-two
teeth, the dental formula being 3, I, 4, 2 for the top
jaw, and 3, 1, 4,3 for the other. But some cats have
only twenty-eight teeth, and one of the dogs
(Lalande’s) has forty-eight, being no less than four
molars in each half-jaw, a dentition which no other
mammal has that is not a marsupial.

In any notice of the Fede it is customary to
begin with the lion. He certainly looks more like a
‘king of the beasts’ than the tiger, and, as a rule,
holds himself more royally. His mane has a good
deal to do with this, perhaps, but in the wild state he
does not grow to the same extent as when he is in
captivity, and altogether he is much more wiry in
build than artists have figured him. He is now only
found in Asia and Africa, slowly decreasing in num-