SKULL AND TEETH OF TAXIDEA AMERICANA. 271 



mastoid. The craDial dome considered alone has little infla- 

 tion; the lateral outlines run nearly straight from the point of 

 greatest constriction to the back root of the zygoma. This 

 wedge shape contrasts with the greater inflation of the cranial 

 dome in most other MusteUclw, notabl}' Lutra and Enliydris. 



The back of the skull has a general triangular shape, with 

 perpendicular flat face and irregular strong muscular impres- 

 sions. The paroccipital processes are rather short, wide, and 

 blunt; they descend to the level of the lower border of the 

 foramen magnum, which latter is low and broad across. The 

 condyles are short and very broad, their articular surfaces 

 being prolonged toward the paroccipitals. 



In profile, the skull shows a single general declivity from 

 near the occiput to the end of the nasals, thence an abrupt 

 bend down to the teeth. This general curve is sometimes a 

 little sinuous, owing to slight depression just behind the orbits, 

 and elevation over them. The i^osterior outline is truncate, 

 with the occipital crest curving into full view below. The 

 zygomata are very little arched indeed — almost straight ; they 

 are stoutly laminar, with a strong superior orbital process an- 

 teriorly, and remarkably developed borders of the deep glenoid 

 fossa. Such development of the glenoid, in connection with 

 its peculiar shape (the front border overlaps on the outer half, 

 the hinder on the inner half), is sufficient to ordinarily lock 

 the jaw in old age. But this peculiarity is not so strongly pro- 

 nounced as it is said to be in Meles. The same thing occasion- 

 ally occurs in old Otter skulls. The orifice of the meatus au- 

 ditoriils lies wholly between the border of the glenoid and the 

 well- developed mastoid process. 



The floor of the skull, aside from its mere shape, resembles 

 that of the A[nstelin(V in the two prominent features of far back- 

 ward extension of the bony palate and great inflation of the 

 bullfe. In the skulls, with moderately inflated bulh^, the palate 

 ends nearly opposite the last molars; in the Otters, with the 

 same extent of palate that Taxidea shows, the bullsB are quite 

 flat. The palate reaches considerably more than half-way from 

 the incisors to the foramen magnum; about half-way from the 

 molars to the end of the pterygoids the palate is quite plane; 

 the incisive foramina are very short and broadly oval. The 

 palate ends behind with a simple concave edge, or nearly 

 straight transverse one, indifl'erently nicked on the median line 

 or with a little median process. The alvelolar borders are ap- 



