170 CAPT. W. SMEE ON THE MANELESS LION OF GUZERAT. 
convex, its highest point being at the upper part of the junction of the nasal with the 
maxillary bones. These differences, however, it is to be remarked, are deduced from 
the examination of a young skull only of the maneless Lion. In this there exists on 
one side a double infraorbital foramen; and the existence of the same structure in 
another skull contained in one of the skins has been ascertained. It is interesting to 
mention this fact, although no great stress can probably be laid on it: but it would 
seem that the double foramen, either on one or both sides, is generally constant in the 
Guzerat Lion, as in two skulls from that country, preserved in the Museum of the 
Royal College of Surgeons, the same structure occurs which I have found to exist in 
the two individuals of my own collection that have been examined. 
Among the differences which I have endeavoured to describe as existing between the 
Lion of Guzerat and that of Africa, there seem to be none of sufficient importance to 
authorize their distinction as species originally separate. The variation in the form of 
the cranium, perhaps not sufficiently made out, would probably, even were it certain 
and constant, be scarcely adequate to establish a specific distinction: and the other 
differences to which I have adverted are all, as it will have been observed, differences 
in degree alone. I feel, therefore, unwilling to regard the maneless Lion of Guzerat as 
a species distinct from the maned Lion of Africa and India, of which I propose rather 
to consider it as a variety to be designated 
Fexiis Leo GoosraTENsIs. 
Juba maris cervicali brevi erectd, ventre ejubato ; caude flocco maximo. 
the Lion and the Tiger, that has been discovered. My attention was first called to it by a scientific visiter of 
the Hunterian Collection some months back, whose name I regret that I have been unable to learn, and I am 
not aware that it has been given to the public in any form. 
«‘ There are some minor differences observable in the skulls of the Lion and Tiger, which may also be noticed. 
“The infraorbital foramina are proportionally larger, chiefly in their transverse diameter, in the Lion. 
“In the crania of two Lions, the only ones known to be Asiatic in the Museum of the Royal College of 
Surgeons, it is remarkable that this foramen is double: in one, which was killed in North Guzerat, this occurs 
on both sides; in the other, which was killed near Assund, it is found on the left side only. 
“Two skulls may be selected out of the twenty crania, one of a Lion and the other of a Tiger, in which the 
nasal aperture is nearly of the same dimensions; but is, however, perceptibly narrower at the lower part in the 
Tiger. All the other skulls of the Lion deviate from the one selected in the enlargement or squaring of the 
nasal aperture ; all the other skulls of the Tiger equally deviate from the one selected in the opposite direction, 
the nasal aperture growing narrower below, or more triangular. On comparing, therefore, the whole together, 
the nasal aperture is seen to be obviously narrower in proportion to its length, and smaller in relation to the 
size of the whole cranium, in the Tiger than in the Lion. This, however, can only be regarded as an accessory 
character, to be noticed after ascertaining the more important ones above mentioned. 
“The coronal extremities of the nasal bones of the Tiger are sunk deeper in a longitudinal depression than 
in the Lion; and in most of the Tiger’s crania this depression is bounded above by a small but distinct semi- 
lunar ridge, which has its concavity directed forwards. This ridge does not appear in the Lion’s crania.”—R. O. 
