Cats, as we have seen, are chiefly tropical, while bears, with two
exceptions, are northern, one species inhabiting the Chilian Andes,
while the brown bear of Europe extends into North Africa as far as the
Atlas Mountains.

The family _Procyonidae_ contains the existing species which appear
to be nearest of kin to bears. These are all small and consist of the
well-known raccoon, the coatis, the ring-tailed bassaris and the
kinkajou, all differing from bears in varying details of tooth and other
structures. The curious little panda (_Aelurus fulgens_) from the
Himalayas, is very suggestive of raccoons, and as forms belonging to
this genus inhabited England in Pliocene times, it is possible that we
have pointed out to us here the origin of this, at present, strictly
American family; but, on the other hand, evidence is not wanting that
they have always been native to the soil and came from a dog-like stock.

As we have already seen, bears have the same dental formula as dogs, but
as they are less carnivorous, their grinders have flatter surfaces and
the sectorials are less sharp; in fact they have very little of the true
sectorial character. It is unusual to find a full set of teeth in adult
bears, as some of the premolars invariably drop out.

It is fully as true of bears as of any other group of large mammals,
that our views as to specific distinction are based upon data at present
utterly inadequate, for all the zoological museums of the world do not
contain sufficient material for exhaustive study and comparison. The
present writer has examined many of these collections and has no
hesitation in admitting that his ideas upon the subject are much less
definite than they were ten years ago. It does appear, though, that in