OCR Text |
Show 1882.] PROF. ST.-GEORGE MIVART ON THE ALUROIDEA. 203 palmar or plantar pad, and one pad for each toe ; and the tarsus and metatarsus are hairy. The nose is medianly grooved beneath. The fur is woolly, of a yellowish or reddish brown, with a few vertical black bands on the sides of the body, and others, more or less horizontal, on the limbs. The claws are blunt, non-retractile, and rather long. There is an anal pouch with one pair of anal glands, and a supraanal band of follicles, as in Crocuta. The penis is boneless; and there are fifteen dorsal vertebrae. As to the skull, its auditory bulla is (as Prof. Flower has pointed out) large, pyriform, and everted posteriorly as in Herpestes, divided by a septum into two chambers, one in front of the other. The margin of the external opening of the auditory meatus (which has no fissure or foramen in its floor) is most prominent anteriorly. There is no alisphenoid canal ; the carotid canal is as in Hyana ; the paroccipital process is flattened, and does not depend; the mastoid is rather strongly prominent; the postorbital processes of the frontal are pointed and well developed ; the skull is not pinched in behind them; the malar processes are moderately developed ; the cranial ridges are weak ; but the zygoma is rather strongly arched outwards, the condyloid foramen is concealed ; the palate is very wide, and is considerably prolonged ; and the pterygoid bones come very near the bullae ; the mesopterygoid fossa is very wide. The angle of the mandible is singularly flattened behind ; and its apex is produced directly backwards. The hinder part of the horizontal ramus is bent up as in Hyana. The teeth, as is universally known, are quite abnormal and rudimentary. There are only three small, conical, blunt upper molars, whereof only - is two-rooted. There are only two lower molars, whereof only the hinder one is two-rooted. Proteles agrees with the Hyaenas in the characters just enumerated except Nos. 1,5,0,7,13, 15, 16, 17, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 41, and 43. These characters, then, serve to differentiate the Protelina from the Hyanina. The characters common to the whole family Hyanida will then stand as follows :- (1) There m a y or may not be a pollex ; but in the majority of species there is not one. (2) There is never a hallux. (3) The ungual phalanges are never strongly arched ; nor is there a wide lamina to shelter the base of the claw. (4) The claws are never more than slightly arched ; they are blunt and non-retractile. (5) The auditory bulla is inflated, but generally gives no external indication of division. (6) The bulla entirely ankylosed into one mass, and is not more prominent towards its inner than towards its hinder border. (7) There is generally only a rudiment of a septum within the bulla. (8) The bony meatus auditorius is shorter, and has the anterior |