30 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



less resemblance between a man's and a gibbon's foot than there is 

 between their hands. In fact, the foot of the gibbon more closely 

 resembles the human hand than the human foot. 



Pattern of Cubs of Lions and Pumas.* — R. I. Pocock finds that 

 bhe patterns of the cubs of lions and pumas are specific characters. 

 These species usually described as uniformly coloured, were formerly 

 marked as their cubs are marked, and in no other way. The pattern of 

 lion cubs is intermediate between the spotted pattern of leopards or 

 jaguars and the striped pattern of tigers. From this it may be inferred 

 that leopards (including jaguars), lions, and tigers are nearly related one 

 to another. On the assumption that spots preceded transverse stripes in 

 evolution, it may also be inferred that the stripes of tigers originated 

 from the fusion of rosettes into transverse chains, as Bonavia main- 

 tained. The pattern of puma cubs affords no support to the belief that 

 pumas are nearly allied either to leopards or lions : it rather suggests that 

 pumas may be regarded as large self-coloured representatives of one of 

 the groups of smaller species of Felis, in the same way that lions may be 

 regarded as large and otherwise modified representatives of a group 

 exemplified by leopards. 



African Mungooses4 — R. C. Wroughton supplies notes on the 

 various known forms of the section of the Herpestinas— usually known 

 as the Herpestes gracilis group— which are small mungooses with a dark 

 tail-tip, usually black, rarely brown. They vary in size and colour, and 

 occur all over Africa. Four groups of species are recognised, and a 

 diagnostic key is given to the sixteen forms which are distinguished. 



Geographical Races of Lesser Horse-shoe Bat.J — Knud Andersen 

 adduces evidence to show that there are three distinct races of Rhino- 

 lophus hipposiderus. There is a small southern form {Rh. h. minimus) 

 distributed, broadly speaking, over the Mediterranean sub-region, south- 

 eastwards to Sennaar and Keren ; a large northern form {Rh. hippo- 

 siderus) ranging from the extreme north-west Himalayas (Gilgit) through 

 north-west Persia and Armenia, over the whole of central Europe, 

 north of the Balkans and the Alps ; and a form {Rh. h. mimitus) ap- 

 parently confined to England, Wales, and Ireland. Recently, M. Mottaz 

 has suggested that the two Continental forms are not distinct races, but 

 represent sexual differences only. This view is shown to be incorrect. 

 An interesting point is that the author in an earlier contribution on this 

 subject predicted the existence of intermediate forms in border districts, 

 e.g. south-west Switzerland, and such forms he has now obtained from 

 Geneva. 



Enigmatical Tooth. — Maurice de Rothschild and Henry Neuville 

 describe in great detail a peculiar tooth from East Africa. It bears 

 some resemblance to the abnormal tusk of an elephant, but the authors 

 cannot accept this interpretation. They conclude that it belonged to 



* Ann. Nat. Hist., cxix. (1907) pp. 436-45 (2 pis.). 



t Op. cit., cxvi. (1907) pp. 110-21. 



% Op. cit., cxix. (1907) pp. 384-9. 



§ Arch. Zool. Exper., vii. (1907) pp. 271-333 (3 pis. and 34 figs.). 



