OCR Text |
Show 1895.] GIANT DORMOUSE OP MALTA. 861 to belong to a true Dormouse and, from the presence of a perforation near the angle, may be assigned to the genus, or subgenus, Eliomys. Unfortunately, none of the skulls or lower jaws in the British Museum are complete, although some of the latter are sufficiently well preserved to show that the angle is constructed on the plan obtaining in the Sciuromorpha and Myomorpha. One example of Left upper cheek-teeth of (1) Leithia, (2) Xerus, and (3) Myoxus quercinus. the cranium shows a very important difference from the Myoxidee in the region of the snout. In all the members of that family the infraorbital foramina are large and open in the maxilla at the fore root of the zygoma, in a manner somewhat similar to that obtaining in tbe Muridce. On the other hand, in the Sciuridee the same foramina are of very minute proportions, each forming merely a small slit at the junction of the premaxilla with the PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1895, No. LV. 55 |