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Show 1902.] ON CARPAL VIBRISSA IN MAMMALS. 127 0. Observations upon the Carpal Vibrissge in Mammals. By F R A N K E. B E D D A R D , M.A., F.R.S., Vice-Secretary and Prosector of the Society. [Received December 24,1901.] (Text-figures 17-21.) In a brief note in ' Nature'l, and incidentally in a paper devoted to the anatomy of Bassaricyon 2, I directed the attention of zoologists to a tuft of long and strong hairs which exist in many mammals on the wrist close to the root of the thumb and generally on that (the radial) side of the forearm. These long hairs are quite similar in character to those which are found in various parts of the head and face of many mammals, such as, for example, the " whiskers " of the domestic cat. They are readily seen on account of their size; and, as a rule, they are also conspicuous by reason of the fact that they are frequently, though not always, of a different colour from the hairs of the surrounding pelage. But if they escape the eye, as is sometimes the case in the skins of spirit-preserved specimens, they can be felt through the skin on account of the large hair-bulbs which receive the proximal ends of the hairs. That these structures must be of some use to their possessors seems to be obvious, and yet is not easy to prove. I have watched various animals, and cannot see that they make any use of the tuft of hairs upon the wrist for touching objects, except in the possible case of the Raccoon (Procyon lotor), which did appear to me to hold its food rather nearer to the wrist than is usual with animals. I believe that my two brief notes referred to are the first published statement of the general presence of this carpal tuft of hairs in mammals. Some years since, as I have already acknowledged, Mr. Bland Sutton described these hairs in various Lemurs3, and showed plainly that they are a general character of that group, though they were wanting (and I can here confirm Mr. Sutton) in the Potto. I find, however, that in every group of animals, with the exception of the Apes, which use their front limbs as grasping-organs as well as for locomotive purposes, these structures are present with some few, though rather striking, exceptions. Since the publication of the facts contained in those two papers, I have had the opportunity of examining a large number of mammals belonging to various Orders. I am therefore now in a position to extend the statements which I originally made, and to give more in detail the distribution of these curious structures in the group of mammals. I do not think that we have here a secondary sexual character, though it is possible that in some i Vol. lxii. p. 523. 2 " On the Anatomy of Bassaricyon," P. Z. S. 1899, p. 661. 3 " On the Arm-Gland of the Lemurs," P. Z. S. 1887, p. 369; where they are figured in the genera Hapalemnr, Lemur, and Cheirogaleus. |