8 ARKIV FÖR ZOOLOGI. BAND 5. NO (). 



The waters at Wittingau belong to the watersystem of 

 river Luznitz which is an affluent to the river Moldavia, the 

 great tributary to Elbe. It might thus be expected that the 

 Beaver of these parts of the Austrian empire ought to re- 

 semble most closely the typical Elbe Beavers, but this is not 

 the case as it, on tlie contrary, shows a close affinity to the 

 Beavers from the system of Danube. The characteristics by 

 which the Moldavia Beavers and at the same time the Da- 

 nube Beavers may be distinguished from the Elbe Beavers 

 as far as the available material is concerned are chiefiy the 

 following. The linece semicircidares join much sooner in the 

 former so that in old specimens they meet already at sutura 

 coronalis and in younger specimens are only a few millimeters 

 apart at that place. By this arrangement the trontal area 

 included between the linecE semicirculares becomes triangulär 

 with the lateral contours concave and it extends only with 

 a narrow strip into the parietal region. In the Elbe Beaver, 

 on the other hand, the linece semicirculares do not meet, even 

 in the old specimens, sooner than at or near the front end 

 of the interparietal bone. In this way the median area 

 between the linece semicirculares becomes elongate, wedge- 

 shaped with the lateral contours convex (except in very old 

 animals), and it extends not only över the trontal but över 

 the parietal area as well. This characteristic is, however, 

 less developed on the photo of the skull of an Elbe Beaver 

 pubHshed by Matschie (1. c. Taf. I Figur 3) than in the 

 present specimens, and this proves that even this characte- 

 ristic is vague, even if the changes caused by increasing age 

 are taken into consideration. 



The naso-premaxillary suture is straight in the Beavers 

 from Moldavia and Danube, and they have a thick nose so 

 that the cranial width a t the middle of the premaxillary region 

 is greater than the least interorbital breadth of the skull. 



With regard to these two characteristics the Danube- 

 Moldavia Beavers resemble two Beaver skulls resp. from 

 Pomerania and Holstein on which Matschie (1. c. p. 217) has 

 bestowed the name ~>^Castor halticus»; and this appears, to 

 judge from Matschie's figures (1. c. Taf. I Fig. 1 and 2), to 

 be the case with the following as well. In the specimens of 

 the Moldavia-Danube Beavers the width of the skull at the 

 anterior end of the squamoso-parietal suture (laterally) is 



