Felide
or FELINE, the cat tribe, a family of carnivorous quadrupeds, including the domestic cat, lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, and lynxes. In these animals the destructive organs reach the highest perfection. The head is short and almost rounded in its form. The principal instruments of their destructive energy are the teeth and claws. They have six small incisors in each jaw, the exterior ones larger than the rest; two canine teeth in each jaw, eight præmolars in the upper jaw, and four in the lower, and ge generally four flesh teeth, or true molars, in the upper jaw, and two in the lower, very large, sharp-edged, and terminated by two or three points. In addition to this the tongue is covered with small recurved prickles by which they can clean from the bones of their prey every particle of flesh.
There are no quadrupeds in which the muscles of the jaws and limbs are more fully developed. The skeleton presents a light but well-built mechanism; the bones, though slender, are extremely compact; the trunk, having to contain the simple digestive apparatus requisite for the assimilation of highly organized animal food, is comparatively slender , and flattened at the sides. The muscular forces are thus enabled to carry the light body along by extensive bounds, and thus it is that the larger felines generally make their attack.
The five toes of the fore-feet and the four toes of the hind-feet of cats are armed with very strong, hooked, subcompressed, sharp claws. The lower surface of the foot is furnished with thick ball-like pads of the epidermis, on which the animal walks; this gives them the noiseless tread peculiar to this family.