VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY IN 1908 453. 



Mr. M. A. C. Hinton takes occasion to discuss the objections 

 which have been taken to the reputed place of origin of the 

 type molar of Macacus pliocenicus, and concludes that there is 

 no reason to doubt its being really from the Pleistocene clay of 

 Grays, Essex. 



The work on fossil Carnivora appears to have been com- 

 paratively small ; but attention may be directed to a paper by 

 Prof. A. Martelli, published in the Boll. Soc. Geol. Ital. for 1906,. 

 in which the author describes two new mustelines from the 

 Tuscan Pliocene, under the generic title of Proputorius, and 

 likewise a new cat. Reference may also be made to a paper 

 by Madame Pavlow, published at Odessa {Mem. Soc. Nat. Nouv. 

 Russ., 1908), on the fossil carnivora of the Chersonese and 

 Bessarabia, which includes the description of a new species of 

 the Pliocene civet-like genus Ictithcrium. Those interested in 

 the origin of our domesticated dogs should refer to a paper by 

 Dr. T. Studer, published in Mitt. Naturfor. Ges., 1907, p. 155, on 

 the skull of a dog from a prehistoric dwelling near Karlstein, 

 Amtsgericht Reichenhall, in which the whole question is dis- 

 cussed in considerable detail. 



In describing this skull, Dr. Studer takes the opportunity 

 of reviewing the state of our knowledge of prehistoric dogs 

 generally. In the Palaeolithic epoch we have Canis poutjatini, 

 an animal of the size of a German sheepdog, with all the 

 general characters of C. familiaris, but showing affinity with 

 the dingo of Australia and C. tenggerianus of Java. This dog 

 probably lived with Palaeolithic man in a half-wild condition, 

 and, by crossing with the wolf, seems to have given rise to a 

 breed like the " laiki " of Siberia, this being represented by 

 C. inostranzewi of Lake Ladoga and the Pfahlbauten of Lake 

 Neuenburg, while by a cross with a flat-headed wolf the 

 Neolithic C. leineri, the ancestral form of the modern deer- 

 hounds, arose. In another line we have from C. poutjatini the 

 sheepdogs, and in yet another the hound-group, whose earliest 

 representatives are C. matris-optimce and C. intermedins of the 

 Bronze age. Perhaps by further crossing with the wolf or with 

 C. inostranzewi was produced the small C. familiaris palustris of 

 the Pfahlbauten. Crossing of the larger breeds, aided perhaps 

 by intermixture with high-skulled wolves, gave rise to the 

 boarhound group, to which the Karlstein skull pertains, this 

 group not making its appearance until the Glacial period. The 



