82 THE NATURAL HISTORY RETIEW. 



In the premolars of both upper and lower jaw, the principal 

 cones are developed at the expense of the accessory ones. 



C. The third species, H. crocuta, Bodd. {Grocuta maculata, 

 G-ray, S. Capensis, Desm.) ranging through South Africa, the 

 Guinea Coast, and Senegal, is very closely allied to the preceding 

 in its dentition, so closely indeed, that Professor Owen has entered 

 a skull of the former in the Hunterian catalogue (No. 4447), as be- 

 longing to the latter. In the specimens in the British Museum, the 

 basal ridge on the inner side of the upper Premolar 2, and the lower 

 Premolars 3, 4, is more stroDgly developed than in S. hrunnea. But 

 the most important characteristic is the absence of all trace of the 

 cusp at the inner and posterior base of the lower carnassial. The 

 tubercular portion of the latter, reduced to a small talon, is divided 

 by a slight ridge into two portions of which the exterior is the 

 smaller. 



On the authority of M. De Blainville,* the upper true molar is 

 very small and subtriangular, and, according to Professor Owen,t is 

 implanted by two fangs. 



§ 2. Having thus noted the differences which obtain in the three 

 recent species of Hyenas, we are now in a position to turn to the 

 analysis of the Possil species. So far back as the 'year 1839, the 

 fact that the H. striata, or more dog- like of the existing hyenas, was 

 represented in the bone caverns of Prance, was proved by the dis- 

 covery of H. prisca by Marcel de Serres,:^ in the caverns of Lunel- 

 Yiel. Nine years after this, the existence of the second or interme- 

 diate species H. hrunnea in Auvergne, was shown by the labours 

 of §MM. Croizet and Jobert, in the discovery of S. Arvernensis. 

 Irrespective of size, the differences between the recent and the 

 fossil species, in each of the above cases, would by no means 

 warrant a specific distinction. M. De Blainville refers both 

 these to H. striata, or the Striped Hyena, including JEE. hrunnea also 

 under the name of H. fusca in the same species. And, lastly, we 

 owe to our great explorer of caves. Dr. Buckland,|| the proof that 

 the third or most Peline of the recent species, H. crocuta, was 



* Osteographie, Art. Hyena, p. 29, 



t Brit. Eoss. Mam. 8vo. 1840, p. 150. 



X liecherches sur les Oss. humatilcs des Caverncs de Lunel-Viel, par Marcel de 

 Serres, Dubrueil et Jcanjean, 4to. 1 839. 



§ Kecherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles dii PujdeDome, 4to. 1484, p. 198, pi. 1. 

 fig. 4. 



II Reliquiae Diluvianse, 4to. 1824. 



