OCR Text |
Show 412 MR. R. LYDEKKER ON THE [Apr. 6, and the dentine, while the tubes in the enamel are straight and regular. In Dasyuridce they pass across more sparsely, as is the case also in Didelphyldce, and no dilatation takes place at the passage, but there is an abrupt bend at this point. In Notoryctes (fig. 2, p. 411) this marsupial character is very strongly marked; the tubes pass into, and through almost the whole thickness of, the enamel in great abundance: they show no dilatation, but a very strongly marked bending at the point of passage. They have another peculiarity : when in the enamel they often show several sharp abrupt bends, the concavities of which lie towards the grinding surface, but they resume sooner or later their original direction parallel with the enamel prisms. This character also is met with in Thylaclnus and markedly in Dldelphys, but is not to be found in Macropods; hence in this feature of minute structure a point of resemblance with Dldelphys is shown. It is interesting to find in these points of minute structure some confirmation of the correctness of the view, arrived at on quite different grounds, that Notoryctes has affinities with the Dasyuridce and Didelphyldce. 3. The Blue Bear of Tibet, with Notes on the Members of the Ursus arctus Group. By R. L Y D E K K E R , F.R.S., F.Z.S. [Received February 17, 1897.] (Plate XXVII.) In the year 1853 the late Edward Blythl gave a brief notice of the imperfect skin of a Bear from Tibet, obtained by Dr. A. Campbell, and now preserved in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. H e regarded it as probably referable to a variety of the Himalayan Black Bear (Ursus torquatus), but suggested that if it proved specifically distinct, the Tibetan Blue Bear, as Dr. Campbell called it, might be known as U. prulnosus. As Mr. Blanford subsequently pointed out, this title is little more than a nomen nudum, and the name apparently dates from the description of a skin and imperfect skull described by the latter writer2. These specimens were brought to the late M r . Mandelli at Darjiling by a native who stated that he had purchased them at Lhasa, and that the animal inhabited the plains around that city. This skin and skull are likewise in the Indian Museum. Mr. Blanford considered that the skin obtained by Mr. Mandelli was specifically identical with Blyth's Blue Bear of Tibet, and he accordingly described it as a distinct species, under the name of U. prulnosus ; his description being as follows :- " The general coloration above is tawny brown, palest on the 1 Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, vol. xxii. p. 589 (1853). 8 Ibid. vol. xlvi. p. 318 (1877). |