OCR Text |
Show 1870.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON EUPLERES GOUDOTI. 825 with a very small head and extremely slender and long nose and a long cylindrical and bushy tail, from Madagascar, under the name of Falanaka, which I was inclined to think might be the adult state of the Eupleres goudotii of M . Doyere. But it has no appearance of the black bands across the shoulders which he describes and figures, and therefore I doubted the identity. But the examination of the skull has entirely set all doubts at rest, for it is certainly the adult state of the skull figured by M . Doyere with its milk-teeth ; and therefore I suspect that the existence of the black bands mentioned in his description and shown in the figure may be caused by the manner in which the hairs clustered together when the animal was taken out of spirit and put in position, as they sometimes will do; or it may be that the young animal may be so marked; but I do not think that this is likely. As the genus has only been described from a young specimen, I send a description of the adult skull and teeth. EUPLERES, Doyere. Skull very elongate, narrow, nearly three times as long as broad ; the brain-case ovate; zygomatic arch long and very slender ; orbit large, oblong, very imperfect behind, quite open to the temporal cavity, without any processes either above or below ; nose very slender, as long as the breadth of the broadest part of the brain-cavity ; nasal bones very slender, elongate ; maxillary bones high ; interorbital foramen large, inferior; the nose divided in the middle about one third of its length; palate narrow, rather wider behind, rather concave in the middle of its length, truncated behind, the opening of the internal nostril, some distance behind the last grinder, elongated, with nearly parallel sides. Lower jaw very slender, light, with a long produced subcylindrical angle behind, narrow and rather flattened iu front, with a rather elongated symphysis. Cutting-teeth |-; the upper small, truncated, forming a close arched series, the outer on each side being rather the largest; the lower smaller, forming a much smaller arched series, the outer on each side being the largest. Canines \ . i-; the upper small, conical, and much compressed and recurved, not quite so large as the first false grinder, and placed at a small distance from the outer cutting-tooth ; the lower very small, close to and of the same form and size as the outer cutting-tooth. Grinders f . f-; the upper false grinders three on each side, compressed and very far apart; the first very like and a very slight distance from the canine, and, like it, recurved ; the second separated by an equally broad space from the first; and the third is compressed, with a recurved tip and an acute compressed lobe on the hinder edge; the third close to the flesh-tooth, forming with the other three hinder grinders a connected series like the preceding, but wider, with a very obscure process on the front edge, a broad compressed one on the hind edge, and a central conical recurved process. The flesh-tooth like the preceding, but with a subtriangular crown |