CARNIVORA 379 



of bone, called coronoid process (r), which gives the surface of 

 attachment to the chief biting muscle (crotaphyte or temporal) 

 is broad and high ; the surface on the side of the skull (tem- 

 poral fossa, t) from which that muscle arises is correspond- 

 ingly large and deep, and is augmented by the extension of 

 ridges of bone from its upper and hinder periphery. 



The bar or bridge of bone (zygomatic arch) which spans 

 across the muscle, bends strongly outwards to augment the 

 space for its passage ; and as it gives origin to another power- 

 ful biting muscle (masseter), the arch is also bent upwards to 

 form the stronger point of resistance during the gripe of that 

 muscle. From almost all the periphery of the back surface of 

 the skull there is a strong pitted ridge, affording extensive 

 attachment to powerful muscles which raise the head, together 

 with the animal's body which the lion may have seized with 

 his jaws ; this beast of prey being able to drag along the car- 

 case of a buffalo, and with ease to raise and bear off the body 

 of a man. If we next examine the framework of the fore 

 limb, which is associated with the above-defined structure of 

 the skull, we find that the fore paw consists of five digits (1-5) ; 

 the innermost and shortest ( 1 ) answering to our thumb, and 

 having two bones ; the other four digits having each three 

 bones or " phalanges." All those digits enjoy a certain free- 

 dom of motion and power of reciprocal approximation for 

 grasping ; but their chief feature is the modification of the 

 terminal phalanx, which is enlarged, compressed, subtriangular, 

 and more or less bent ; with a plate of bone, as it were, re- 

 flected forwards from the base, from which the pointed termi- 

 nation of the phalanx projects like a peg from a sheath. A 

 powerful, compressed, incurved, sharp-pointed, hard, horny 

 claw is fixed upon that peg, its base being firmly wedged into 

 the interspace between the peg and the sheath. The toe-joint 

 so armed is retractile. Tins complex, prehensile, and destruc- 

 tive paw is articulated to the two bones of the fore leg (ra- 



