DESCRIPTION OF TAXIDEA AMERICANA. 265 



Description of external characters.* 



Form stout, thick-set, indicative of great strength and little 

 agility; body broad depressed ; head flattened, couoidal; tail 

 and limbs short ; feet broad and flat ; fore claws enormous, 

 highly fossorial. Pelage of body and tail long, loose, shaggy, 

 and of coarse texture ; shorter and closer on the head and feet. 

 Coloration blended, diffuse, grizzly above j below, uniform ; on 

 the head definitely marked in certain areas. 



The head is nearly one-fifth of the total length exclusive of 

 the tail ; it is conoidal, but depressed very broad across the 

 temples and cheeks, contracting gradually to the prominent 

 snout. It is covered with short, close, coarse hair, only length- 

 ening about the ears. The muzzle is completely furry, except- 

 ing the nasal pad itself; this is completely anterior, with a 

 downward-backward obliquity ; there is a median vertical fur- 

 row ; the nostrils, not at all visible from above or laterally, are 

 pyriform, lengthening slitwise at the lower outer corner. The 

 naked pad is black ; below it, the upper lip is completely furred 

 across, and the fur elsewhere extends to the very edges of the 

 rather thin lips. The rictus is ample ; the canines are visible 

 in life. The eye is remarkably small, and rather high up, a lit- 

 tle back of the angle of the mouth. The vibrisst^e are sparse 

 and short, the longest scarcely or not attaining the eye ; here 

 and there other bristles grow about the eyes and on the chin. 

 The ears are low, rounded, and very broad, with remarkably 

 large external meatus, partly defended by long loose hairs 

 growing in front, completely hairy outside and for some dis- 

 tance inside around the border; but most of the concavity of 

 the conch is naked, with some sparse isolated tufts. 



The fore limbs are short, stout, and the fore feet very large, 

 broad, and flat, bearing immense claws. The digits are much 

 abbreviated and consolidated, appearing from above almost 

 entirely grown together, from below as five closely appressed 

 oval pads. They are shorter than the claws they respectively 

 bear ; the 2d-5th, are subequal and longer than the 1st or oth, 

 which are mere claw-bearing bulbs. The back of the hand is 

 hairy to claws, the bases of which are overhung by the longer 

 anterior hairs ; the palm shows the following disposition : a 

 crescent of five large closely apposed naked digital bulbs, sep- 

 arated by a profound excavation from a single large irregu- 



* From numerous specimens in the Smithsonian Museum. 



