The Carnivora of the New World are inferior in size, strength, and ferocity to those of Asia and Africa. In place of the lion, America has only the puma--a smaller and less powerful creature. The tiger of Southern Asia is represented by the jaguar, a somewhat smaller animal, but the most powerful of the American carnivora. In North America, however, the numerous bears are distinguished by their size and power, particularly the grizzly bear of the countries which border upon the Rocky Mountains. The great white bear of the polar regions is common to the high latitudes of either hemisphere. North America, which is more strictly continental in extent than the southern half of the New World, possesses, indeed, other types of animal life which rival those of the Eastern Hemisphere. Among these are the majestic bison, or American buffalo, together with the elk or moose-deer, occupying a place similar to the reindeer of Northern Europe and Asia. Several varieties of the deer-kind occur in the northern half of the continent, together with the musk-ox, the big-horned sheep, and the Rocky Mountain goat, which are peculiar to this region. The tapir and the peccary (an animal of the hog kind) range all over the plains of South America, and the former is also found on the coast of Central America. The puma (or cougar) occurs on the Mexican Isthmus, and even as far northward as the 45th parallel, though found most numerously in the southern half of the continent, where its range extends to within a few degrees of the Strait of Magellan. The jaguar is found in the coast regions of the Mexican Isthmus, as well as the forests of Brazil and the adjoining regions of South America. The lynx and the wolf belong to the colder tracts of North America. The opossums are numerous in South America, and one species is met with in the United States (Virginia); this family (Marsupialia) is altogether absent from the eastern continent, but is fully developed in the Australian division of the globe. The beaver abounds in the colder latitudes of North America, together with a vast number of other fur-bearing animals; as raccoons, martens, squirrels, sea-otters, minks, muskrats, ermines, foxes, wolverines, and hares.