54 desultory sketches in natural history. 



The Lycaons, 

 (Lycaon* Brookes ; Cynohycenaj Blainville), 



Which absolutely resemble the Dogs in their osteology, except that 

 the anterior thumbs are rudimenial, and seen only in the skeleton ; 

 and the nasal orifice (as in the Hyenas) is much larger. They have 

 the same number of ribs (thirteen), and precisely the same dental cha- 

 racters,t possessing even the second • inferior true molar, which oc- 

 curs in no other Digitigrada, besides the Canidce : their cranial 

 laminae even, which part the cerebrum from the cerebellum, are not 

 more developed than in the Dogs ; whereas, in all the other DigitL 

 grada, they are much more developed : they have no glandular 

 pouch near the anus, and it is probable that the tongue also is soft and 

 smooth. On the other hand, however, their affinity to the Hyaenas 

 is so obvious, even to the style of colouring and markings of the 

 skin, which in character resemble those of no Cants, that we find 

 different naturalists of eminence including them in the distinct ge- 

 nus Hyaena. Of the anatomy of their soft parts we are uninformed ; 

 which is the more to be regretted, as there is every reason to suspect 

 that therein will be found substantial proofs of the propriety of the 

 arrangement here adopted, which the form of the ccecum alone 

 would suffice to determine. This much is certain, that in coitu 

 annexus non est, any more than in the Hyaenas, which implies a 

 structural difference from the Canidas in one of their most marked 

 characters ; and. Hyaena-like, we read of the South African Lycaon, 

 that " When this animal begins to walk or run after having been at 

 rest for a time, it appears weak or even lame in the hind legs, like 

 a Hyspna ; it never barks, but gives utterance to a shrill sound, re- 

 sembling ho-ho-ho-ho-ho ; the sounds being almost lost in each 

 other."J 



• AvKuov, Pliny ; a term applied to some canine animal from India, and de- 

 rived from AvKOiy Lupus, a Wolf. The animals which at present bear this 

 generic title must not be confounded with the Canis lycaon, Linn, which re- 

 fers to the Black Wolf of Europe, a very doubtful species. Canis Ipcaon of 

 Fischer applies to one of them. 



f Cuvier states, in his Ossemens Fossiles, that the small lobe in front of 

 their false molars is rather more developed ; but even this slight difference 

 we are unable to perceive in a skull of the ordinary Cape species now before 

 u§. 



X Dr. Andrew Smith's African Zoologij, p. 43. 



