SKELETON OF CARNIVORA. 



493 



and 23-25 caudal vertebrae. The spine of the axis has great 

 height, length, and posterior breadth, arching forward and back- 

 ward, overlapping the third, of which the spine is obsolete ; that 

 of the fourth is short and vertical, indicating a centre of the motions 

 of the neck. The anterior dorsal spines are lofty and strong, for 

 the origin of muscles implanted in the ridged and pitted back 

 part of the skull, whereby the head can be raised together with 

 the prey which the jaws have seized : a Lion thus draws along 

 the carcase of a Buffalo, and can with ease raise and bear off the 

 body of a man. The eleventh dorsal is that toward which the 



337 



Lion i^Felis Leo). Lxxiii-. 



spines of the other trunk-vertebra3 converge: the anapophyses 

 begin to project backward from this vertebra, and are continued 

 to the penultimate lumbar. Eight pairs of ribs directly join the 

 sternum, which consists of eight bones. The lumbar diapophyses 

 are long and antroverted. The tail is the chief seat of variety 

 in the vertebral column of the feline group. The Lynx (F. 

 Lynx) e.g. has the number of caudal vertebra? reduced to 15. 

 In a tailless .variety of domestic cat a stunted mass of 4 or 5 

 coalesced caudals has become hereditary. 



The carnivorous unguiculate do not, like the herbivorous ungu- 

 late Gyrencephala, show^ two series by numerical characters of 

 trunk-vertebrjjc ; the constancy of twenty dorso-lumbars is re- 

 markable and significant : the exceptions are not only rare, but 



