The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-08-20

of the CacomictI cat they concluded from it's description that 1t was Azara's Yaguarondi cat, and so stated the mat ter in the reports they wrote on their return to the east.
 It was not, however, until about ten years ago that the zoologists of the Ma tional Museum were able to secure g. specimen Of the Rio Grande animal which is now to be seen stuffed and mounted in the institution aforesaid, and, when this happened they saw at a glance that it was not the, Yaguarondi cat of Azara, but an entirely now ami nal. The Indians of the Rio Grande valley called the animal the "Caco- mictl," word of doubtful or unknown significance, and, with due regard for local terms, the zoologists forthwith named the animal Tells Cocamictl." Notwithstanding this discovery and remaining, the majority Of those who are at all familiar with the animal con- tinue still to speak of the latter as the 'Yaguarondi cat" just as people fur ther east persist in calling a certain variety of marmot a ground hog" when there is no hog about it, for the same general reason that the animal was first known under such name. On viewing the unusually fine pair of Cacomictl cats at the Zoo most people would be inclined to the view that this i species represents departure from the normal of the cat family and that in l fhp GaNnT0tpt1 aot a of adaptation of an extreme form; that is to say, in time past the cacomictl cat has been driven by stress Of circun- stances, or necessity, to get it's living cut os the water. Those individuals that, in form, were more like otters, could swim faster, dive better and see | fish quicker, survived, and thus in the struggle for existence finally evolved race of cats with bodies and heads like | those of an otter or mink. But it is more than likely that. instead of this being the case, the Cacomictl cat is the most primitive form of the-feline race in the world. and that instead of having been vastly modified from the generality of felines as they are now known, the Cacomictl cat has of all members of it's family, changed the 1 least in the centuries since the down of the Eocene period. The reason for this view is as follows:
 It is a fact well known to geologists and paleontologists that, instead of be- ing the New World.' North Amedica is in reality, the oldest dry land on the globe, and the region in which the old parent forms of the horse, elephant, rhinoceros and cat family whose modi- fled offspring migrated into Asia, Afri- ca and Europe via the Behring Strait route, thus becoming extinct on this continent, were first evolved.
 | The parent of all modern eats. such as the tiger, leopard, puma, jaguar, lynx, ounce, &c., was one of several an- imals that, in the Eocene period inhab- ite the dense tropical jungles surround ing certain large fresh-water lakes, 1 where now are the great plains Of the west, in the underlying rock of which their remains are now found. This strange animal paleontologists have named Patriofelis ferex, which, literally translated from scientific Latin, is ''fe rocious or wild father cat" There is now, of course, no way of telling just what the old original father cat looked l like; whether he was striped like the tiger, as come have held, or whether he had spots like the leopard which others have contended are the most primitive of all cat markings: but. although as large as modern lion, we do not know by an examination of it's bones that in form and habits it bore closer resem- bIance to the Cacomictl cat than to any other of its modern descendants.
 While the skull, teeth and certain oth- CT parts show plainly that 1t was cat of the cats, there are one or two of the bones, notably those of the shulder and hips, so strlkingly those of the seal that when first discovered they were mista- ken for those of some animal of the seal or sea lion kind, nor was this view upset until the rest of the remains were found.
 Moreover, the caudal vertebrae showed that the animal had tail like an otter, while other things contrihu- 1 ted to prove clearly and beyond all question that the first cat. instead of being denizen of high and dry places
 
 like the majority of it's modern de- scendants, was an amphibious animal, spending most of it's time in the water. Now, although the Cacomictl cat does not go to the extreme of having a single bone suggestive of or resembling those
 of the seal or otter. yet in form and
 habits 1t is more like the old original parent cat than any known feline, and for that reason has probably undergone
 fewer notifications from the original form than any of the modern cats
 known to science.
 The Ewra cat and the pair of Cacomi-
 ctl cats now at the National zoo are
 magnificent, full-grown specimens of
 their species, and were obtained by the
 management from a dealer in Texas
 Washington Post.